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Seetharaman G

Deputy Editor • India Edition

Starting out as a business journalist in 2008, Seetharaman has written about energy, climate change, retail, banking, and technology. He has worked with Business Today, a fortnightly, and the Sunday edition of The Economic Times.

79 Articles published

Top Comments by Seetharaman G

Why Softbank-backed Elasticrun is "good news" for FMCG distributors rattled by Jiomart, Udaan

Hi, Santosh, thanks for the feedback. The revenue model for a company like Elasticrun or Udaan is not very different than a traditional distributor's, where their profitability depends on the margins they get from the FMCG company and on their cost structure. But these B2B companies have the resources to undercut distributors and lose money to gain market share, in the hope of eventually selling their own brands. Jiomart is further along than Udaan on this journey. As far as the absence of cannibalisation goes, FMCG companies' authorised-distributor network starts thinning as they go deeper into India's hinterlands. HUL and ITC have the best coverage of rural areas, but even they don't have the kind of direct-distribution reach they would like. For instance, HUL products are available in nine million outlets, but only 3.5 million of these are serviced by its own distributors. The rest are mostly catered to by wholesalers, who are the primary conduit between FMCG companies and kiranas beyond cities and towns. So when a B2B players operates in rural areas, the chances of it coming into conflict with distributors are not nowhere near as high as in cities.

Seetharaman G

How Nykaa went from investor darling to tech laggard

Hi, Vishwa and Abhinav, this is because the holding period for the new shares starts from the day of their allotment and not from the day of purchase of the original share, so you'll have to hold the new shares for another year before you get the benefits of long-term capital gains. And you can't offset the losses arising from the sale of the original share against the short-term gains from the sale of the new shares. It's a taxation flaw that needs fixing. You can also read this explainer: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/portfolio/personal-finance/when-bonus-issue-becomes-a-tax-issue/article66184802.ece

Seetharaman G

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