Corporate news that made buzz in 2014

The corporate world witnessed a lot of activity in 2014. Scams, major appointments, mergers and acquisitions dominated the corporate space. We take a look at the year that was and major talking points in the business world that you must know about.

Vishal Sikka takes over as Infosys CEO
Vishal Sikka, a former executive at German software firm SAP AG, became the first non-founder CEO of Infosys on August 1. His appointment came amid a series of exits from the IT services firm.
Sikka has, since, been in the news for his new ways of retaining talent at Infosys.

Kotak Mahindra Bank acquires ING Vysya Bank
The highly regulated banking space saw a major acquisition with Kotak Mahindr Bank buying ING Vysya Bank in an all-stock deal. The merger will straightaway give Kotak Mahindra Bank access to ING Vysya's huge network in south India, beefing up the former's reach.

Vijay Mallya in trouble
Vijay Mallya, the self-proclaimed 'King of good times' was in the news for all the wrong reasons. The United Breweries (UB) Group Chairman Mallya was tagged 'wilful defaulter' by United Bank of India, and was later sent 'wilful defaulter' notices by two other banks.
Further, Mallya was forced to quit top posts at two group companies, including Kingfisher Airlines.

Sebi imposes 3-year ban on DLF from capital markets
In a major blow to DLF, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) banned it and six of its top executive form the capital markets for three years. The ban was the first-of-its-kind ruling by Sebi and raised fears of tougher norms for corporates even with strong political ties.

Sun Pharma-Ranbaxy deal in focus
In early-April this year, Ranbaxy Laboratories announced its acquisition by Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries for US$ 4 billion. The deal would make the largest pharma company in the country and as a result, it came under regulatory scanner for fear of hampering competition.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) approved the controversial acquisition on December 5, with certain pre-conditions.

Subrata Roy jailed
In early March, the Supreme Court sent Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy to jail for not complying with the SC order to refund around Rs 20,000 crores of investors money collected by his company.
The company made several attempts to sell its overseas hotels and domestic properties to fund Roy's bail. As these attempts continue, Roy is still in jail.

SC cancels coal block allocations
In a major blow to the corporate sector, the Supreme Court quashed allocation of 214 out of 218 coal blocks, which were allotted to various companies since 1993.
In early December, however, the Lok Sabha passed a Bill to re-auction 204 cancelled blocks. The bidding process is set to take place on February 11, 2015.

Alibaba IPO breaks record
Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce giant, got listed on the NYSE with the world's biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history at US $25 billion. The record-setting IPO catapulted Alibaba's valuation to over US $200 billion, making its Executive Chairman Jack Ma the richest man in China.

CBI unearths Syndicate Bank scam, arrests CMD
The Central Bureau of Investigation unearthed the Syndicate Bank bribe-for-loan scam in early-August and arrested the bank's CMD SK Jain for taking bribes worth Rs 50 lakh. After further investigations, the CBI estimated the scam at a whooping Rs 8,000 crore.
Investigations are ongoing.

Facebook buys Whatsapp
Facebook announced its acquisition of Whatsapp in February this year and closed the deal in early October for a whooping US $22 billion. The Whatsapp acquisition is expected to play a big role in Facebook's bid to connect the next billion people to its network, with a growing number of Internet users on mobiles, which is Whatsapp's forte.

Satya Nadella becomes Microsoft CEO
Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella was named the chief executive officer of Microsoft, to become the third CEO of the software major. Social media was abuzz with the appointment as Nadella is of Indian origin.
He was also in the news for wrong reasons when he passed a comment on wages of women, which didn't digest well with people.

Jignesh Shah after NSEL scam
In early May, Jignesh Shah was arrested by the Mumbai Police in one of the biggest corporate frauds in the history of India - the Rs 5,600-crore National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) scam. He was later released on bail and in November he resigned as the managing director of FTIL to become the company's Chairman-Emeritus.

Microsoft buys Nokia
Microsoft closed its much-awaited US $7.2-billion acquisition of Nokia's handset business in April. The deal was announced in September 2013. Later in October, Microsoft announced that it would transition to the 'Microsoft Lumia' name and drop the 'Nokia' name from its Lumia smartphones.

In the aftermath of the National Spot Exchange (NSEL) scam, Financial Technologies India (FTIL) was ordered to sell its stake in commodity bourse MCX. It exited the bourse in August and in Decemer, the company completely exited the MCX-SX bourse by selling shares to ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.

The e-commerce boom kept Snapdeal in the news but the real buzz around the e-commerce major as created when Japanese media group Softbank bought a US $627 million stake in Snapdeal. The deal was the largest investment in the e-commerce market.

Speaking of the e-commerce boom in the country, it was aided by Amazon's US $2 billion investment in India. Amazon, in a bid to compete better with home-grown e-tailers like Flipkart and Snapdeal by expanding its reach, announced the investment just a day after Flipkart's Rs 6,000-crore investment announcement.

BRICS, the group of five major emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - decided to set up a development bank with US $100 billion initial funding. The New Development Bank will be based in China and will be headed by an Indian for the first five years.

Chinese handset makers changed the dynamics of the Indian smartphone market and one of the biggest entrants was Xiaomi. The company sold its phones in flash sales exclusively on Flipkart and made buzz because the phones were sold out in mere seconds.

The Malaysian Airlines tragedy
Malaysian Airlines became synonymous with tragedy in 2014 after being hit with two successive mishaps. In one of the strangest unsolved mysteries in the airline industry, flight MH370 of the airline, carrying 239 people, disappeared. Four months later flight MH17, with 298 people aboard, was downed by a missile.

Malaysian airline AirAsia came to India and started operations on the Bangalore-Goa route in June. The no-frills carrier has since expanded to cover Mumbai, Kochi, Ahmedabad, among other destinations and started competing with domestic budget carriers with discount offers on tickets.