Today’s Latest Business News, Finance and Share Market News at 9:30 am on 8th November 2022

"You are listening to the Expresso Business Update. Here is the latest news from the world of Indian and International business brought to you by The Indian Express and The Financial Express.
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"Let's begin. The Indian share market will remain closed today on the occasion of Guru Nanak Jayanti. The currency markets will also remain shut. While trading in the commodities segment will remain suspended in the morning session, trading will resume in the evening session from 5 PM to 11:30 PM. Trading in the Interest Rate Derivatives segment will also remain suspended. There will be no action in the Equity Segment, Equity Derivative Segment, and SLB Segment, according to the list of stock market holidays 2022 available on the official BSE website. The Commodity Derivatives Segment and India’s largest commodities exchange Multi Commodity Exchange of India will be closed for trading on today in the first half of the trading session (between 9 AM and 5 PM). Trading will resume in the evening session from 5 PM to 11:30/11:55 PM. The National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange Limited, which is the agricultural commodity exchange, will be closed for trading in both sessions today.
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"On to the industry sector. Japan’s Nippon Life, which has a 49% stake in Reliance Nippon Life Insurance Company, has initiated discussions with Birla Sun Life Insurance for a possible merger. The talks were initiated after RCap’s administrator invited bids for the 51% stake in RNLIC. Nippon Life has categorically mentioned that it had no plans to sell its 49% stake in RNLIC. A merger with Birla Sun Life Insurance, an Aditya Birla group company, would enable the joint firm to bid for debt-laden Reliance Capital’s 51% stake being held in RNLIC. Nippon Life is looking at a possible merger with Birla Sun Life Insurance after Birla group acquires a majority stake in the former Anil Ambani group company, sources close to the development said. The merger between the two entities is necessary because the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority guidelines do not permit both Indian and foreign companies to hold in excess of 10% stake in more than one insurance arm.
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"In some more industrial news, Vistara complements the multi-hub strategy of Singapore Airlines, thus making the loss-making Indian carrier a successful venture for the latter than some of its failed international projects, company’s CEO Goh Choon Phong, said on Monday. Vistara is a 51:49 joint venture between the Tata Group and SIA and in mid-October, the latter said that it is exploring a potential merger of the Indian carrier with Tata Group’s Air India. Once it materialises, Tata Group will have two carriers – a full-service and a low-cost – which will adequately address the Indian aviation market, instead of the four different airlines it operates at present. The process towards this has, in fact, started with AirAsia recently selling its residual stake of 16.33% in its India entity to Air India. Following this, Air India said that it has started the process to integrate AirAsia India with Air India Express to create a single low-cost carrier.
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"Meanwhile, SoftBank-backed Unacademy sacked about 10% of its workforce, or around 350 employees, on Monday, citing unfavourable market conditions and due to the ongoing funding slowdown for tech startups. Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal announced the layoffs in an internal email to employees, saying that all those affected will be given a severance pay equivalent to the notice period and an additional two months. He added that employees will also get an accelerated one year vesting period of their sop shares. FE has reviewed a copy of the email. Munjal said iquote, “Even though we realised this much earlier and took some stringent measures such as reducing our monthly burns, controlling our operational spends, limiting our marketing budgets and identifying other redundancies within the organisation, it was not enough. We need to keep optimising and building efficient systems for leaner and unprecedented times,” unquote.
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"And lastly, some legal drama. The Supreme Court on Monday issued a contempt notice to the Securities and Exchange Board of India on Reliance Industries’ plea alleging non-compliance of its August 5 order that directed the market regulator to provide the company access to certain documents. While the regulator cited pendency of its review petition for not acting upon the court’s order, the latter said it cannot be a ground to stay the order. The company had sought three documents from Sebi that it had claimed would exonerate it and its promoters from criminal prosecution initiated in a case related to the alleged irregularities in acquisition of its own shares between 1994 and 2000. While the SC had in August directed Sebi to share the documents “forthwith,” the market regulator had not so far shared the three documents — two legal opinions by former SC judge BN Srikrishna and a report by former ICAI president YH Malegam which examined the irregularities. Sebi claimed that they are awaiting the outcome of Sebi’s review petition.
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