Intercultural Business News

An Indian government delegation arrives today in Houston, the heart of the American oil industry, hoping to raise as much as $4 billion (£2.4 billion) by auctioning rights to drill for hydrocarbons at the Bay of Bengal.

The sale of 70 exploration licences for the Krishna-Godavari basin, parts of which have already proven rich in natural gas, is the largest to be undertaken by India and may prove a key factor in the nation’s energy security.

But potential investors will have something on their mind other than thoughts of striking petrochemical gold: an increasingly vicious row between the world’s richest,and possibly most fractious, brothers.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani — who are together worth more than $30 billion — fell out after the death in 2002 of their father, Dhirubhai, who rose from rags to riches by creating Reliance, a sprawling industrial empire embracing petrochemicals and telecoms. He died without writing a will.

The Feuding Ambani Brothers

 
In 2005 the company was split between the feuding brothers under terms hammered out by their mother, Kokilaben — the only person so far to have mediated successfully between the siblings. Since then, however, dealings between India’s most prominent “Bollygarchs”, who account for as much as 5 per cent of India’s GDP between them, have descended from frosty to sub-zero.

Read More>The Times Online

Greyhound buses have become part of American folklore, and they are about to become a feature of British life.

FirstGroup, the British company that owns Greyhound Lines, will start running budget Greyhound buses next month.

The new operator should stimulate competition in the UK transport market, by taking on National Express and Megabus, which is owned by Stagecoach, in the low-cost travel market. FirstGroup is aiming to emulate BoltBus, an American division of Greyhound aimed at younger travellers.

Will Greyhound Busses Become A Regular Sight On UK Roads?

Greyhound will run from hourly services from Victoria in central London to Portsmouth and Southampton from September 14. FirstGroup hopes to add further destinations next year.
With fares starting from £1.50, including a 50p booking fee, FirstGroup appears to be targeting travellers who find rail travel too expensive. Free wi-fi on the buses is likely to attract younger customers.

Read More>The Times Online

Nobody is quite sure exactly when the “reassuringly expensive” Belgian beer morphed into “wife-beater” but the shockingly rapid decline of Stella Artois from premium lager to tipple of choice for binge drinkers is the sort of salutary tale that keeps marketing types awake at night.

Long gone was the bucolic advertising image of French peasants licking their lips over the rare prospect of an ice-cold glass of Stella Artois. Instead, the brand had become associated with slabs of beer cans piled high in supermarket aisles as part of extremely cheap promotions.

Stella Artois sees big gains in British market

But the latest sales figures out yesterday suggest that the nightmare may be coming to an end. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer with brands that include Budweiser and Beck’s, said that it had won market share in the UK beer market as a result of “the resurgence of Stella Artois”.

The brewing behemoth, created from last year’s marriage of InBev of Belgium and Anheuser-Busch of the US, revealed that UK sales volumes of the Stella brand, which have been in sharp decline since the smoking ban, grew by 6.6 per cent in the second quarter of the year and by 3.7 per cent in the first half.

Read More>The Times Online

Spotify, which allows people to listen to music online for free in exchange for listening to audio adverts, has enjoyed huge success in Europe, where it has more than two million users in the UK and Sweden.

The company now plans to roll-out the service in the United States, and is on the brink of securing a fresh injection of cash from backers, including the Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.

Spotify expanding into the US Market

 
  The Financial Times reports that the Li Ka-shing Foundation, as well as London-based venture capitalists Wellington Partners, and other unnamed investors, are set to plough around $50m in to the Swedish music-streaming service, which would value Spotify at around $250 million.

Spotify, which has offices in Luxembourg, London and Stockholm, was founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It offers three levels of “membership” to its users – free, ad-supported access to its library of streamed tracks; 24-hour ad-free access for 99p per day; and monthly ad-free subscriptions for £9.99.

Read More>The Telegraph

American businessman Stan Kroenke, Arsenal’s largest shareholder, has increased his stake in the Premier League club.

The Stock Exchange has confirmed that Kroenke has acquired a further 160 shares in Arsenal taking his total holding to 28.58 per cent. The American will be obliged, under Stock Exchange rules, to make formal takeover bid should he secure a 30 per cent stake in the club.

Emirates Stadium

The Stock Exchange has confirmed that Kroenke has acquired a further 160 shares in Arsenal taking his total holding to 28.58 per cent. The American will be obliged, under Stock Exchange rules, to make formal takeover bid should he secure a 30 per cent stake in the club.
On 9th July 2009, Arsenal Holdings plc (the ‘Company’) received notification that on 9th July 2009 Stan Kroenke, a director of the Company, acquired 160 ordinary shares of £1.00 each in the Company at a price of £8,500 per share,” a statement read.

Read More> The Times Online