Weekly News Wrap: Indian jewelers revive expansion plans; Shopee’s Sea exits India
And Domino’s Pizza China operator is filing for Hong Kong listing.
From Bloomberg:
Jewelers in India are shaking the dust off their expansion plans this year as sales in the second-biggest market are set to increase even more after almost doubling in 2021.
Sales in the country have just started recovering as fears of the pandemic eased. India’s gold imports jumped to the highest level in a decade in 2021 as jewelry purchases surged, according to the World Gold Council.
That’s a turnaround for jewelers, who had put expansion plans on hold and focused on shedding debt after demand was hammered for almost two years as the coronavirus led to the postponement of many weddings—a key source of demand.
Demand is set to grow as much as 10% in the year starting April, according to India Ratings & Research Pvt., the local unit of Fitch Group.
Read more here.
From Reuters:
Sea Ltd is withdrawing from India's retail market just months after starting operations there, the second pullback this month in an overseas expansion drive, as the loss-making firm faces a weak growth outlook.
The withdrawal, effective beginning 29 March, comes weeks after its e-commerce arm Shopee said it was pulling out of France and after India banned Sea's popular gaming app "Free Fire". After the ban, the market value of New York-listed Sea dropped by $16b in a single day, leading some investors to cut holdings in the company.
Shopee said in a statement its withdrawal came "in view of global market uncertainties" and that the company would make "the process as smooth as possible".
Sea earlier this month said revenue growth of its e-commerce business was expected to halve to around 76% this year from a blistering 157% in 2021, amid fewer online purchases and engagements as more countries emerge from the pandemic.
Read more here.
From CNBC:
The operator of Domino's Pizza stores in China, DPC Dash, has applied to go public on the Hong Kong stock exchange, according to an online filing.
U.S.-listed franchisor Domino's Pizza has a 15.7% stake in DPC as of the filing date through wholly-owned entities, the document showed. No one entity has majority ownership.
Much of the key information on pricing and timing were redacted in the publicly available document, as the listing has yet to occur. Bank of America Securities is the sole sponsor of the listing, according to the application.
DPC said in the filing it is Domino's Pizza's "exclusive master franchisee" in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao, with 485 directly operated stores in 10 cities on the mainland — mostly in Beijing and Shanghai.
Read more here.