Future group promoter Kishore Biyani's stake fell consistently across group companies since December 2019 after American retail major Amazon infused funds in a Future group promoter entity and the group companies started showing signs of financial distress due to closure of stores due to Covid-19 pandemic. As lenders take Future group companies to the bankruptcy courts to recover their dues under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, the shareholders of Future group companies are staring at complete wipeout of their investments as secured lenders get top priority in any potential recovery, say lawyers. "The fate of all Future group shareholders is now sealed with them looking at a complete loss.
The possible acquisition of Holcim India business will be one of the biggest inbound corporate deals in the country. Currently, Walmart Inc.'s $16-billion acquisition of Flipkart Online Services in 2018 remains the biggest acquisition of an Indian asset by any acquirer, followed by BP plc acquisition of 30 per cent stake in Reliance Industries' 23 oil and gas production blocks in 2011 for $7.2 billion. Bloomberg reported late on Wednesday night that Holcim - the world's biggest cement maker - is considering a potential sale of its India business and gauging interest in its controlling stake in Ambuja Cement.
'Thankfully, most investors in India have now seen through this false narrative and are once again deploying their hard-earned money.
'The recent correction in indices has made the markets cheaper to invest for the long term.'
Consumption of gold is the highest among middle-income households - those with annual income between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh - who account for an average of 56 per cent of gold sales over the last five years, according to a nationwide survey conducted by India Gold Policy Centre (IGPC) at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). "Per capita consumption is highest among the rich, but total volume still rests with the middle-income group. "With increasing income, there is an increasing propensity to consume gold, although the share of gold in the portfolio does not increase with the same proportion of income," the survey report says.
Adani Green Energy entered the list of top-10 most valued companies in terms of market capitalisation (m-cap) in the country on Monday after its stock price zoomed 16.3 per cent to hit a new high of Rs 2,701.6 on the BSE. Adani Green Energy's m-cap now stands at Rs 4.22 trillion, surpassing Bharti Airtel, which has an m-cap of Rs 4.16 trillion. With today's rally, the stock has zoomed about 25 per cent in the last two trading days after UAE's International Holding Company (IHC) agreed to invest Rs 3,850 crore in Adani Green Energy through preferential issue.
Fundraising activity in the upcoming financial year 2022-23 may even surpass FY22 when 52 Indian companies raised a record Rs 1.11 trillion via initial public offerings (IPOs). According to a note by PRIME Database, 54 companies (including LIC) plan to raise Rs 1.4 trillion and currently hold the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) approval. Another 43 companies, the note said, are looking to raise about Rs 81,000 crore but waiting for Sebi nod.
Foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows into India may remain tepid in 2022, said a recent note by Goldman Sachs, who now peg the foreign portfolio investment into India at $5 billion in 2022, down from their earlier forecast of $30 billion with risks skewed to the downside. "There has been $15 billion of equity outflows YTD in India already, and the IPO of the largest insurance company has been pushed out. "Additionally, with no mention of India's inclusion in global bond indices in the Union Budget, there are risks to our already conservative base case assumption of an announcement of India's likely inclusion into the GBI-EM Global Diversified Bond Index in Q4-2022," wrote Andrew Tilton, Goldman Sachs' chief Asia-Pacific economist in a co-authored report with Santanu Sengupta and Suraj Kumar.
Tata AIG, ICICI Lombard and Nippon Life have evinced interest for the profit-making insurance arm of Reliance Capital (RCap), joining several prominent financial companies from India and abroad in the race for RCap's assets. The final day to submit an expression of interest (EoI) was March 25 and the bidders will now get access to the latest information about RCap before they make financial bids.
The faster-than-expected rise in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve (US Fed) shook global financial markets in early 2022. And now the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has lifted commodity prices, with Brent crude oil hitting a 14-year high of $139 a barrel in intraday trade. All these developments have sent the equity markets across the world into a tailspin.
Gold prices have surged nearly 18 per cent, so far, in the calendar year 2022 (CY22) to around $2,050 per ounce against the backdrop of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and there is more headroom over the next few months, believe analysts at Goldman Sachs who expect the yellow metal to become costlier by another 25 per cent to $2,500 an ounce by the year-end. Goldman Sachs, earlier, had raised its 12-month gold price forecast to $2,150 per ounce considering that an impending US growth slowdown would lead to increased concerns of a US recession and incentivise 300 tonnes of inflows into gold ETFs. At the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine tensions, Goldman Sachs had suggested the resultant rally in commodities could deteriorate the developed market (DM) growth-inflation mix, increase concerns of a American recession, and push gold ETF inflows to 600 tonnes and, in turn, lift gold prices to $2,350 an ounce in 12 months.
With the international markets facing uncertainty after Russia invaded Ukraine and Western nations retaliated with sanctions, Indian companies are putting their international fundraising plans on hold as they wait for the markets to recover. Bankers said apart from the geopolitical crisis, international rates are hardening in anticipation of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve to control rising prices in the US. The Ukraine situation has implications for the market. In such a situation, international investors try to shift to safe haven assets by exiting from emerging markets.
Investors and companies should brace for higher commodity prices over the next few weeks in the backdrop of Russian troops attacking Ukraine on Thursday. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden threatened new sanctions against Russia for an act of aggression against Ukraine. All this, analysts believe, can push prices of key commodities such as crude oil, ammonia, urea, potash, and phosphates higher.
The auditor of ABG Shipyard, which is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the Rs 23,000-crore default to banks, had settled an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by paying a small settlement fee in 2019. The regulator had initiated an investigation into the fund diversion from ABG Shipyard and had asked the auditor to explain why it failed to detect fund diversion in time. In his settlement application, auditor MN Ahmed, partner of Nisar & Kumar, a chartered accountant firm, said he ceased to be an Indian citizen and has retired from the profession.
Every 10 per cent rise in crude oil price will shave off around 0.2 percentage point (pp) from India's GDP growth and widen the current account by 0.3 per cent, says Nomura.
A lot of mid and small-caps are in the bubble zone and command high valuation and have corrected sharply.
With the Adani and Jindal groups and Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries joining the race to buy Videocon Industries' (VIL's) assets, lenders are expecting aggressive bids for VIL's consumer durables and overseas oil assets, which are to be sold in separate auctions. The entire asset sale exercise is expected to be completed in the next six months, said a banker. A promoter entity of Naveen Jindal-owned Jindal Steel and Power has also evinced interest in the second round of bids for VIL's consumer durable business. The deadline to submit bids for VIL's assets ended on February 2.
A hallmark of some new businesses today is that they seek to use the brute force of capital, combined with smart technology and operations, to create new needs that you didn't even know existed, the chairman of Aditya Birla group said in a blog post on the trends for the new year.
Analysts caution against volatility and recommend buying stocks of companies that are on strong fundamental footing that have been beaten down badly in the recent carnage.
Indian companies are expecting generous tax incentives from the Union Budget that will help them invest more in building capacities in the coming years. While the productivity-linked incentives (PLIs) are a good start to spur local manufacturing, the government should also take steps to boost consumer demand, which is not showing encouraging signs, say chief executive officers (CEOs) of India Inc. Statistics released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that Indian banks had sanctioned loans worth Rs 75,558 crore in 220 new projects - a record low - in the pandemic-hit financial year ending March 2021. This is not showing any signs of a significant pick up in the last nine months of the ongoing financial year.
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