'Policy-sensitive sectors will wait and watch, but policy-agnostic areas will continue based on normal consumption demand.'
At the annual general meeting (AGM) of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Wednesday, shareholders made the usual request to the top management for bonus shares. But this time, the setting was different. The man at the helm, outgoing group chairman AM Naik, 82, was heard assuring shareholders that he would join the chorus soon. There were laughs and chuckles at Naik's playful remark as he addressed the last AGM, nearly six decades after he joined L&T as a junior engineer and some 25 years at the top.
Reliance Industries (RIL) has reset its battery pack production timeline, shifting it from 2023 earlier to 2024, details shared in the oil-to-telecom conglomerate's latest annual report suggest. In the FY23 annual report released on Sunday, the company has listed the start of battery pack production in 2024. A year ago, at the company's annual general meeting (AGM), Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of RIL, had said, "We aim to start production of battery packs by 2023 and scale up to a fully integrated 5 GWh annual cell-to-pack manufacturing facility by 2024."
Reliance Industries (RIL's) annual report released on Sunday highlighted the company's focus on new energy solutions, with chairman and managing director (MD) Mukesh Ambani stating that the age of fossil fuels will not continue much longer. RIL has sought shareholders' approval to give Ambani another five-year term as MD till 2029 at nil salary. The recently demerged Jio Financial Services, which "will leverage the prowess of digital and retail businesses", was expected to be listed soon.
Cement manufacturers' show during the June 2023-ended quarter (Q1FY24) has indicated an intensified slugfest for market share. For instance, Dalmia Bharat (Cement) said it has lost market share in eastern India owing to lack of price discipline. Industry analysts also said that the seasonal weakness in cement prices for Q1 is showing up earlier than usual.
Capital goods companies are likely to report double-digit growth in sales and profit for the first quarter of the 2023-24 financial year (Q1FY24), according to analysts. The performance will ride on lower raw-material costs and healthy execution of orders. Sales by capital goods companies are likely to increase 13-20 per cent year-on-year (YoY), five domestic brokerage firms said.
Billionaire Gautam Adani on Wednesday shared a personal note on the development of Dharavi in Mumbai, days after the Maharashtra government issued a resolution to award the Dharavi redevelopment project to his conglomerate on July 14. In the note shared with the media, Adani said his first tryst with Dharavi in Mumbai was in the late 1970s, and the slum settlement continues to amaze and inspire the billionaire to date. "When this opportunity to renew Dharavi came calling, I seized it with both hands," he said.
Arundhuti Dasgupta maps a trail from the southernmost tip to its suburbs.
Women leaders, succession planners and lawyers say doors in family businesses are opening but a stronger push is needed.
Experts attribute this trend to a combination of end of capital expenditure cycle, increased automation, RIL's preference for time-bound labour contracts, and telecom and retail's outsourced human resource model.
Experts point out teaching in its online avatar helps address women specific concerns, like care-giving responsibilities, lack of safe public and work spaces, and the inability to move to cities.
There was a worry that such a policy would hamper businesses, create resentment among the male staff and perhaps also discourage companies from employing women. However, this has proved to be misplaced.
Some of India's biggest employers are testing for antibodies to either comply with regulatory norms or gauge the effectiveness of precautionary measures.
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.
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.
Instead of its once haloed existence as the year of lofty goals and vision statements, it is now staring at an epitaph that may well read: The year when death ran amok and the gods went missing, notes Arundhuti Dasgupta.
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.
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