Most of the changes have come about in the last four years and ITC is now reaping the dividends - standalone revenues from the non-cigarettes FMCG business have grown 40 per cent from FY17 to Rs 14,728.21 crore in FY21 and pre-tax profits 30 times to Rs 823.69 crore. The business accounted for 30.58 per cent of gross revenues and 4.85 per cent of pre-tax profits in FY21. "In the last four years, our margins in FMCG have gone up by 640 basis points (bps) and EBITDA margins have been moving up consistently. "We created levers that enabled a sustained growth trajectory," said ITC chairman and managing director Sanjiv Puri. Puri took charge as the chief executive officer in 2017; in 2018, he was redesignated managing director and effective May 2019, he became chairman.
Analysts remain sceptical on the profitability from freighter business, saying that once normal air transport resumes and there's abundant belly capacity, the traditional economics of air cargo may not be that lucrative.
However, the tender criteria demands that an entity must be eligible to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations in order to become eligible. Currently, no drone companies are eligible to do BVLOS operations, reports Arindam Majumder.
Scanty rainfall, last year's lockdown, growing competition from Nepal and the disaster of the 2017 Gorkhaland agitation are steadily weakening exports and sales of Darjeeling tea.
Those who know Alapan Bandyopadhyay describe him as measured, tactical and extremely focused on achieving what he sets out to do. To many it came as a surprise that he would cut short a meeting with the prime minister.
'Everyone wants to take a vaccine. The last time a camp was held, there were 1,000 people for 500 doses. People are waiting and returning disappointed. At times, it is creating problems. The demand is much more than the supply.' Ishita Ayan Dutt reports on how the West Bengal countryside is reacting to the vaccination drive.
IndiGo, India's largest airline, is in talks to raise fresh funds as a second wave of pandemic has led to collapse in travel demand. The airline may look to raise Rs 3,500-4,000 crore. On Monday, only 97,761 passengers flew. With flyers cancelling bookings, airlines had to put aside flights and operated only 1,306 of them.
Though the mandate is seen largely an outcome of Banerjee's welfare schemes, she has promised to industrialise at a faster pace, or so read the manifesto.
'The last three phases, the Trinamool gained more than expected due to Covid mismanagement by the Centre.'
UP Rs 50 billion, followed by Maharashtra, Bihar, and West Bengal which may need close to Rs 25 billion for the massive task.
The timeline for disinvestment of Air India and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) may be pushed by two to three months due to impact of the second Covid-19 wave. However, the government is confident of wrapping up the sale of the two companies by FY22 and meeting the disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 trillion. This will be achieved by sale of government stake in core and non-core public sector undertakings (PSUs).
According to government data, the Centre procured only 35,179 ventilators out of the 50,000 originally ordered.
Over the weekend, many companies stepped in to ease the bottleneck in supply and transportation of oxygen, as demand ran high with the surge in cases.
The fairy tale turnaround story has, however, taken a few knocks after a second wave of the pandemic has brought a series of default notices and has posed the toughest test for the 55-year old Singh to save the airline he founded and sold to the Marans only to assume control later.
The company will utilise this time to carry out maintenance work at its manufacturing plants.
India Ratings expects long products demand growth to be sharp, supported by a demand push from the government-led infrastructure investments in affordable housing, railways, rural electrification and road networks.
Within two weeks of many airlines deciding to roll back salary cuts encouraged by a steady increase in traffic flow, a second wave of coronavirus along with rules of compulsory RT-PCR test has hit forward bookings. The fears of last summer, when the pandemic had overturned all the wisdom of airline boardrooms, have returned to haunt the aviation industry. According to an official in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, flight occupancy is down to 60 per cent from 70 per cent in the first week of March. Airline lobby group IATA estimates that low cost airlines need to fly at 80 per cent occupancy to be profitable.
Metal prices from copper to aluminum and tin have shot up by about 7-32 per cent in the past three months.
Whatever the outcome from the assembly elections, what's evident is that West Bengal has entered an era of identity politics, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
Adani Airports is planning to centre its airport business around Mumbai and Ahmedabad by developing them as gateway airports, feeding them with traffic from other airports in the company's portfolio. The Ahmedabad-based conglomerate - with investments in logistics, transportation, utilities and energy - intends to spend Rs 35,000 crore in the airport business in the next five years. This forms the bulk of the conglomerate's total capex of Rs 50,000 crore. According to a presentation given by the company in an investor call with Bank of America, gateway airports of Mumbai and Ahmedabad will be connected with the feeder airports of Lucknow, Guwahati, Trivandrum, Jaipur and Mangalore.
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