More than a year of Covid-19 has pushed most businesses into gloom but Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managed to reduce its gross debt 25 per cent, enabling it to turn towards its next phase of capital expenditure that has come in the form of a Rs 75,000-crore plan for green energy and power storage. The company managed to stay afloat during the pandemic because of its large presence in the consumer-centric businesses of retail and telecommunication (see chart: "A new Reliance"). These two businesses constituted 45 per cent of its EBITDA during FY21 from 36 per cent in FY20.
Mobile operators with the exception of Reliance Jio are in a much worse financial condition than expected earlier. The combined borrowing of the four incumbent operators - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) - reached an all-time high of Rs 3.85 trillion at the end of March this year. The companies' combined debt was up 22.4 per cent year-on-year last financial year against 8.3 per cent growth in their borrowing in the previous year. As a result, the incumbent operators' debt-equity ratio shot up to an unsustainably high level of 6.83X at the end of March this year from 2.3X at the end of March 2020. This was largely due to big losses reported by all these companies last financial year. The four incumbent operators racked up combined net losses of Rs 70,000 crore in FY21.
The change in leadership at the railway ministry comes at a time when the national transporter is grappling with low passenger earnings even as it is trying to increase freight loading and open up its doors to private investment. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw took charge from Piyush Goyal who got the railway portfolio in 2017 after Prime Minister Narendra Modii dropped Suresh Prabhu from the Union Cabinet. Completing freight corridors, negotiating land for the bullet train, and speeding up monetisation plans would be some of the major focus areas for Vaishnaw.
The 14 listed Tata group companies in which Tata Sons holds a stake are paying out a record Rs 35,441 crore to their shareholders by way of dividends and share buyback for FY21.
Smaller stocks continue to shine at the bourses. The BSE MidCap index is up 18 per cent since the beginning of January this year against a 5 per cent rise in the Sensex during the period. With the current rally, the mid-cap index has doubled in value since the end of March 2020 against a 70 per cent rally in the Sensex during the period. On Tuesday, the mid-cap index closed at 21,232, as compared to 17,941 at the end of December 2020. In the same period, the benchmark index moved from 47,751 to 50,193.
India's top IT companies have shown a hiatus between their performance on the bourses in the pandemic period and earnings growth. The combined market cap of the top five IT companies - Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra - is up 87 per cent since the end of March 2020. In comparison, the benchmark BSE Sensex is up 68 per cent during the period. So the industry beat the broader market by a big margin in the last one year.
The combined dividend payout by early-bird companies -- those that have declared their results for FY21 -- is up 8.9 per cent, lower than the 21.9 per cent rise in in FY20 but ahead of the underlying growth in India Inc business last year. Combined net sales of these early birds were down 1.8 per cent last financial year while net profit was up 27.3 per cent in FY21. Some top companies that have stepped up dividend payout in FY21 include Hindustan Unilever, Indus Towers, Tata Steel, Ultratech Cement, Larsen & Toubro, Dabur, Asian Paints, and UPL. In contrast, banks have skipped dividends under an RBI diktat while companies such as Marico, TCS, Maruti Suzuki, and Godrej Consumer are paying lower dividends for FY21.
Thanks to a continued rise in the market capitalisation of the Adani Group companies, its promoter Gautam Adani is now the second richest Asian and fourteenth richest businessman in the world with a networth of $66.5 billion. Reliance Industries promoter Mukesh Ambani remains the wealthiest businessman in Asia with a networth of around $76.5 billion, according to Bloomberg data. The six Adani Group companies had combined market capitalisation of Rs 8.36 trillion as on Thursday, against Reliance Industries' market capitalisation of Rs 12.6 trillion. Adani Green tops the charts in the group with m-cap with Rs 1.99 trillion.
It looks unlikely that a proper plan was in place or else the deaths could have been averted, reports Jyoti Mukul.
Historically, Tata Steel has always been among the biggest companies in the group in terms of m-cap, revenue, and profit but its fortunes began to decline after 2010 due to a sharp decline in the profitability of its European operations that it had acquired in 2007. The company was hit by a sharp rise in its debt level after this acquisition. First, it lost out to Tata Motors in terms of revenue in FY11 and then in March 2015, Titan beat it to become the third-biggest firm in the group in terms of m-cap. In FY20, TCS reported higher revenue and Tata Steel had become the third biggest company in that terms.
The group companies now lead the market capitalisation league table in sectors such as ports, power generation, gas distribution and transmission, and power transmission and distribution, ahead of incumbents in both public and private sector. This has Gautam Adani family the second wealthiest in business in India.
For deciding which vehicles are to be scrapped, the setting up of fitness centres and regulating them would be a humongous task.
Overall, Tata Steel becomes the seventh non-financial firm, including four oil PSUs to report quarterly revenues of Rs 50,000 crore.
Earnings growth in the early-bird sample has been driven by banks and iron & steel companies.
The Tatas, L&T and Bharat Forge expressed interest in building pressure swing adsorption oxygen plants at hospital sites, while IOC and RIL are pitching in with both oxygen and cryogenic tankers needed for its transportation.
However, experts caution that investors should not expect the big returns they got from the sector between March and September 2020.
Together with its share buyback worth Rs 16,000 crore completed in January this year, TCS shareholders will receive a record Rs 30,250 crore from their company in FY21.
According to industry figures, the pre-Covid demand for liquid medical oxygen (LMO) before the pandemic was 700 tonnes per day across the country. Now, with the second wave, the demand has gone up more than seven times, reports Jyoti Mukul.
'Our automakers export 50 per cent of what they manufacture and once the policy comes into play, which is in the next 2-3 years, we would become a Rs 10 trillion industry.'
'We completed Rs 17 trillion worth of projects in the first term and currently Rs 9 trillion worth of contracts are under construction.'
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