Infrastructure conglomerate Lanco Group and leading financial services firm Edelweiss Capital have emerged frontrunners in the race for Axis Bank's private equity arm. According to two people familiar with the developments, Lanco and Edelweiss have made the most aggressive financial bids among all the non-binding ones that have come in so far. The bids, they said, were in the range of Rs 30-45 crore.
Interestingly, KMC for the last five-six years, had been earning money by selling land to developers in prime locations through the bidding process.
Three years after exiting the power business, the Rs 1.4-lakh crore Aditya Birla Group is planning a powerful comeback into the sector and is eyeing a major acquisition in Tamil Nadu, two people with direct knowledge of the deal told Business Standard.
Within 24 hours of the brothers Ambani deciding on a ceasefire, the stock market and Reliance pundits are out with their calculators to figure out the financial implication of ending the non-compete terms five years in advance and the loss that Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources Limited would incur post the Supreme Court verdict.
After Tuesday's Naxal attack on the Central Reserve Police Forces, police forces across the country are likely to see a sharp jump in their insurance premia when their group personal accident policies are renewed. The hike could be in the region of 200-300 per cent, according to insurance firms.
In the past one year, the share of state-run banks in auto finance has increased significantly, and in some cases nearly doubled, on the back of competitive rates offered by banks such as State Bank of India.
Small price difference with Maruti causes customer attrition and back-outs.
Put plans on hold after HK caps expansion, Singapore orders stricter asset norms.
A year later, land prices are less than half the peak levels of Rs 20 lakh an acre.
Since September-October last year, when the real estate market was in deep recession, several developers had started offering gifts like a car or a parking space with flats. For example, Kolkata-based real estate developer RDB Group had decided to give a Nano car with flats at its residential project in Sonarpur, South 24-Parganas.
Govt's divestment plans encourage funds to bet big on state-owned firms.
The minister said at a time when banks in the US and Europe needed government support for survival, banks in India were strong enough to sustain on their own.
Pranab Mukherjee has projected government borrowings of Rs 4.51 lakh crore for the current fiscal.
The long wait for realisation makes lenders averse to security receipt transactions. Instead, they have been insisting more on cash, even though valuations of bad assets are generally lower in case of cash deals than those involving SRs. While in deals involving SRs stressed assets are valued at 30 per cent on an average, in cash deals they are valued at 20 per cent, depending on the quality of the assets.
"We are now looking at a new fund under the gold category, which will enable small investors to subscribe to the units from the offices of UTI, without even having a demat account," said sources at UTI Mutual Fund. "With the equity markets rising by almost 30 per cent between mid-March and April, investors are no longer interested in gold ETFs. Also most Indians prefer holding physical gold, rather than gold ETFs," said a broker.
State Bank of India, India's largest lender, may cut interest rates in the new financial year on the back of a lower-than-expected credit growth.
The share of government banks in auto finance has increased significantly in the last few months. In some cases, it has nearly doubled. The reason: these banks are offering cheaper loans than their private sector counterparts.
In spite of ample liquidity, banks are treading cautiously as far as lending to the real estate sector is concerned, and are seeking collateral as high as 150 per cent of the loan amount as security deposit from them.
The fresh allegations of carrying out retail trade have come from the Forward Bloc, a constituent of the Left Front government in Bengal, which had been opposing the entry of Metro on this ground. Forward Bloc-controlled APMC in the state has submitted a report stating the instances of violations of the terms of the Regulated Market Committee licence, said sources.
The company is also mulling to enter the currency futures space through the exchange. Recently, the Securities and Exchange Board of India had issued guidelines for SME exchange, and had set a minimum net worth criteria of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) for entity willing to start it.