OYO AMONG TOP FIVE HOTEL CHAINS IN CHINA: CEO AGARWAL

NEW DELHI: Hospitality firm Oyo on Thursday said after 12 months of operations in China, the company has emerged as one of the top five hotel chains in the country. The company, currently, has over 180,000 franchised and leased rooms and more than 4,000 hotels under various formats in China, Oyo said in a statement. “During our last round of funding, we had committed approx $600 million to the China market, of which $300 million will be used for renovation and infrastructure investments,” Oyo Hotels founder and group CEO Ritesh Agarwal said. This additional investment will help Oyo drive the next wave of growth in China, which is already ahead of India, that too in a much shorter span, he added.

Jubilant Life arm inks pact to acquire Inipharm

NEW DELHI: Drug firm Jubilant Life Sciences on Thursday said its subsidiary Drug Discovery and Development Solutions Ltd (DDDSL) Singapore has entered into an agreement to acquire 10% stake in Inipharm Inc. USA for around $28.5 million (over $199 crore). The company’s whollyowned subsidiary has entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire 534,194 shares of common stock of biotechnology firm Inipharm Inc. USA, for a cash consideration of $534.20 per share, Jubilant Life Sciences said in a filing to BSE.

Deutsche Bank HQ raided in money laundering probe

BERLIN/FRANKFURT: The activities at Deutsche Bank AG that prompted a police raid on its headquarters took place as recently as this year, according to authorities. While money-laundering suspicions stem from the 2016 disclosures known as the Panama Papers, the investigation covers the five-year period from 2013 to 2018, a spokeswoman for Frankfurt prosecutors said. The main suspects in the probe focused on a unit in the British Virgin Islands that processed €311 million ($354 million) in 2016 alone were two bank employees who were not identified beyond their ages—50 and 46. For the beleaguered German lender, the raid adds to a panoply of headaches— commercial, regulatory and legal—facing chief executive office Christian Sewing, who took over in April, and Paul Achleitner, chairman since 2012.

Govt: ₹1.83 tn invested in 4 petrochemical regions

NEW DELHI: Around ₹1.83 lakh crore has been invested and over 3 lakh people have been employed so far in four petrochemical investment regions being developed in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, the government said on Thursday. In an official statement, minister of state for chemicals & fertilisers Mansukh L Mandaviya said the department of chemicals & petrochemicals has registered good progress by facilitating increased investments in Petroleum, Chemicals and Petrochemical Investment Regions (PCPIRS) for boosting industrial development and employment generation. Under the cluster-based development model, the department has identified four PCPIRS in Gujarat, AP, Odisha and Tamil Nadu—that are in advanced stages of implementation. COMPILED FROM AGENCIES