Retail lights up strong quarter for Reliance Industries

Reliance Industries (RIL) reported consolidated income of Rs 178,328 crore in the second quarter of fiscal year 2022, growing 20 percent sequentially and by 48 percent over the same quarter a year ago.

Reliance Retail's revenue grew 10.5 percent year-on-year to gross Rs 45,450 crore in the quarter ended 2021. 'Digital' and 'new commerce' accounted for 20 percent of it, according to a stock-exchange filing by RIL. The operating profits in retail were up by 50 percent sequentially.

RIL reported strong traction in digital commerce and merchant partnerships, and record orders across platforms. "Reliancedigital.in extended reach to over 2,000 cities," RIL said in the exchange filing, adding that 90 percent deliveries from stores happened in less than six hours.

Facebook to pay publishers in France

Facebook will pay French publishers for sharing their content on its platforms, the social networking company said on Thursday.

“After constructive negotiations, this solution will further our investment in the news industry, and strengthen the news experience for both people and publishers on Facebook,” said Jesper Doub, Director of News Partnerships, Facebook Europe.

The company also said it will launch Facebook News in France in January 2022. "This will give people a dedicated space to access content from trusted and reputable news sources,” Doub added.

SIAC dismisses Future Retail's plea

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has dismissed Future Retail's plea to the Emergency Arbitrator (EA) to vacate its order that blocked Future Retail's assets sale to Reliance Retail.

Ecommerce giant Amazon has been in a legal battle with Future Retail to prohibit its sale of assets to ‘restricted persons’, which included Mukesh Ambani, in a shareholder agreement between Future Retail and Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings.

On Thursday, the arbitration tribunal told Future Retail: "The Respondents (Future Retail) have not demonstrated that circumstances have materially changed to justify any change to the EA Award."

KEC wins new orders of Rs 1,829 crore

Infrastructure company KEC International has secured new orders of Rs 1,829 crore across businesses.

The civil business has got orders in India of Rs 935 crore for works in the water pipelines and industrial segments, while the transmission and distribution business secured orders of Rs 656 crore for projects in Europe and the Americas, stated KEC International in a stock-exchange filing on Friday.

“Our YTD (year to date) order intake has surpassed Rs 7,000 crore, with a robust growth of 70 percent vis-à-vis last year,” said Vimal Kejriwal, MD and CEO, KEC International.

PayPal in talks to buy Pinterest

Silicon Valley digital payments giant PayPal has offered to acquire digital pinboard company Pinterest in a deal valued at around $45 billion, people aware of the discussions told The New York Times.

If completed, it will be the largest consumer-internet deal in the past decade, topping Salesforce’s $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack last year, and Microsoft’s $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016.