In a curious move, Reliance Industries' (RIL) executive director and Mukesh Ambani's trusted aide PMS Prasad pledged 600,000 shares of the company last month, which is 93.75 per cent of the total shares he owns in RIL. Prasad owned a total of 640,000 RIL shares and his compensation stood at Rs 11.15 crore in FY20.
Since existing laws do not cover Covid-19, any compensation in this regard has to be left to the discretion of companies.
Among the lot, Rallis India, Escorts, Jubilant Life Sciences, and Crisil added half of the total gains made in the ace stock-picker's portfolio.
Chairman A M Naik said H2 of 2020-21 will herald better economic and business activity in terms of tendering, good liquidity, as well as revival of labour and supply chains.
India's sourcing from China may not necessarily be for cost-effectiveness alone but also for the lack of domestic qualified bidders, technology or other know-how.
While seven companies bagged orders worth Rs 42,000 crore, industry experts said most of this new order activity was a spillover, and fresh project finalisation remains weak.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown may have put the best of funds on a backfoot of deal activity, RIL, however, has been an outlier. With 10 different investors brought in for its telecom venture Jio Platforms, RIL undertook 12 different transactions since April this year.
With RIL's market capitalisation crossing the Rs 11-trillion mark on Friday, Ambani is ahead of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the 10th and 11th richest, respectively, and behind Zara founder Amancio Ortega on the Forbes Real-time Billionaires List.
'India should take up defence manufacturing in a more serious manner and encourage greater private participation.'
Govt has already approached World Bank seeking termination of contract. The progress of the project was just 20 per cent though the contract was awarded in 2016.
The demand for black oils and specialty products like fuel oil, bitumen, petcoke and sulphur has also shown marked improvement, facilitating increase of refineries throughput.
Experts say, investors will be better off exiting them at higher levels and investing in stocks of fundamentally sound companies.
In a circular dated May 20, Sebi had directed the listed companies to evaluate the impact of Covid-19 on their capital and financial resources, profitability, liquidity position, assets, and ability to service debt. Instead, companies have spoken about the number of plants, warehouses and distribution centres that have resumed operations; work-from-home and safety measures undertaken for employees; and the labour shortage they are facing.
India's harsh lockdown has left companies grappling with temporary closure, chaotic supply chains and depressed demand. Consequently, business plans have been modified.
Currently, the investor and his family's net worth in listed firms stands at Rs 8,517 crore, compared to Rs 8,388 crore as of March 31, 2020.
Several on-site labourers in the city want to take special trains being run to transport workers back home. The rising number of COVID-19 cases in the city has caused anxiety among them.
Of the 171 Mumbai scribes tested on April 15, 53 tested positive on April 20. Of the 53 tested positive, 31 were treated and discharged on April 26. A large number of positive cases and later a quick recovery within less than a week have baffled many. Amritha Pillay reports.
RIL's debt stood at Rs 3.06 trillion as of December 2019, against Rs 2.87 trillion in March 2019.
The S&P BSE Small-cap index has recovered 26 per cent as compared to a 23 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex.
Experts say the focus is on preserving liquidity as there is uncertainty over the duration and impact of the 21-day nationwide lockdown imposed to check the spread of COVID-19.