The reported buyback of Temasek's 20 per cent stake in Tata Play by Tata Sons will be the third instance of Tata Group providing an exit to a foreign partner in recent years. In 2018, Tata Sons paid $1.27 billion to DoCoMo to buy back 26 per cent of the group's telecommunication venture, Tata Teleservices. This was followed by Tata Sons acquiring AirAsia Berhad's 49 per cent stake in AirAsia India in two tranches to make it a wholly owned subsidiary.
Indian lenders are unlikely to clear the vertical split of BSE-listed Vedanta Ltd in a hurry, considering that the demerger would reduce the fungibility of cash flows across businesses and increase their volatility, according to analysts. The demerger plan, which would result in six separate listed entities, would require approval from shareholders, lenders and other statutory bodies. "We believe that a separate listing of different businesses would reduce the fungibility of cash flows across businesses and increase the volatility of cash flows.
Metal and mining companies, such as Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Hindalco, and Coal India, have been among the top-performing sectors on the bourses in recent months. The S&P BSE Metal Index is up 13 per cent in the past three months, rallying 29 per cent in the past year, outperforming the broader market. For comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex has only seen a 1.7 per cent increase in the past three months, with a 15 per cent gain since the end of September last year.
Analysts assert that Vedanta Group's plan to demerge India-listed Vedanta Limited into six listed entities will not resolve the debt problem of its promoter entity, Vedanta Resources (VRL). They suggest that additional asset sales or stake sales by promoters will be necessary to repay the debt. Vedanta is already considering the divestment of its iron-steel division and its copper plant.
Reliance General Insurance Company (RGIC), a subsidiary of Reliance Capital, finds itself in a bind as the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) has issued multiple Show Cause Notices (SCNs) amounting to Rs 922.6 crore. This development comes at a time when Reliance Capital is currently undergoing a debt resolution under the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) process in which the Hinduja group has emerged the winner. The Hinduja acquisition is currently awaiting the Supreme Court's approval after the Torrent group, the winner of the first round, challenged the second auction conducted by the lenders of Reliance Capital.
The recent surge in crude oil prices could shave off the gains made by India Inc in profit margins in the past few quarters. Worse, it comes at a time when consumer demand in the country is slipping and major global economies are witnessing a slowdown. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the margin expansion accounted for three-fourths of the rise in the listed firms' operating profit between the April-June quarter (Q1) of FY23 and Q1FY24, and only a quarter of profits gains came from revenue growth.
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JP Morgan's decision last week to include Indian government bonds in its Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) index and the index suite from June 2024 may be a sort of blessing for India, as the move is estimated to result in an inflow of $25 billion of foreign portfolio investments into the country. The development comes at a time when the spread between the benchmark 10-year government of India bond and the 10-year US government bond has declined to its lowest level in more than 17 years. Low yield spreads make Indian bonds less attractive to foreign portfolio investors (FPIs).
Nirma has roped in BCG and KPMG to advise it on the fundraising options for the acquisition. The company had earlier informed banks that it would raise Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 7,000 crore in the current financial year for the acquisition. Bankers said the company will rely on its funds and future GLS dividend to repay its debt for acquisition.
India's corporate sector, including public sector enterprises (PSEs), continues to go slow on investments and capital expenditure (capex). According to data from Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL), corporate investments declined for the second consecutive quarter in the April-June period (first quarter, or Q1) of 2023-24 (FY24). After a contraction of 0.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in the 2022-23 (FY23) January-March quarter, corporate investments likely fell 6.2 per cent Y-o-Y in Q1FY24, write Nikhil Gupta and Tanisha Ladhaa of MOFSL in their recent report on corporate investments.
The promoter entities of JSW Group are in talks with several electric-car manufacturers in China to launch an electric car for the Indian market at Rs 15-20 lakh, a source close to the development said.
Over the past year, the National Stock Exchange Nifty FMCG Index, which tracks the market capitalisation of the top 15 companies in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, has surged by 17.3 per cent. In contrast, the Nifty50, a broader market index, has witnessed an 8.8 per cent increase during the same period. The FMCG stocks have also been rally leaders in the current calendar year.
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in India are expected to stay buoyant, seen over the last three-four years, despite a slowdown in the first seven months of the calendar year. "M&A is a lumpy business activity, and we may suddenly see large deals taking place during the next two quarters of the calendar year. "This would help maintain the streak of strong M&A activity.
In a dramatic turn of events in May 2019, an Emirates aircraft en-route to Dubai was asked to stop while it was taxiing for a take off in Mumbai. The pilot was given no reason and ordered to immediately return to the parking bay. As the aircraft returned to the terminal, two passengers from the first class - Naresh Goyal and his wife Anita - were offloaded by the immigration authorities, who said the duo cannot leave the country. Goyal, founder of Jet Airways, was stunned. The man, who ruled the aviation sector for two and a half decades with an iron hand, did not expect to be offloaded in this fashion.
April-June 2023 (Q1FY24) was a mixed quarter for India's top family-owned business groups. Three of the big five in terms of revenue reported a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) decline in combined net sales and two saw a Y-o-Y fall in net profits. Combined net sales of all listed companies in the five groups were up just 2.2 per cent Y-o-Y at Rs 6.6 trillion in the quarter, down sharply from the 10.3 per cent in the March 2023 quarter (Q4FY23) and 42.8 per cent in Q1FY23.
One of the key factors contributing to the decline in the value of the rupee against the US dollar is the tightening yield spread between the 10-year India government bond and the US government bond. The yield on 10-year Indian government bonds is now only 295 basis points higher than that of US 10-year treasury bonds, the lowest since January 2007. Lower spread means lower incentive for foreign investors to invest in rupee assets, which adversely affects foreign capital inflows into the country and weighs on the rupee-dollar exchange rate.
38 auditors resigned in 2022-23, compared with 46 the previous year.
The combined market capitalisation of Adani Group companies fell by Rs 54,876 crore, to Rs 10.92 trillion, as investor sentiment turned bearish on Wednesday. Shares of Adani Transmission fell by 7.7 per cent to close at Rs 886 while those of Adani Power lost 7.1 per cent to end the day at Rs 323. The stock of Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of the group, lost 6.2 per cent to finish at Rs 2,530.
Households may be feeling the pinch of higher inflation but corporate India is enjoying record high margins and profits. The combined quarterly net profit of listed companies scaled a new high in the April-June 2023 quarter owing to a sharp rise in operating and net profit. The expansion in margins more than compensated for the slowdown in revenue growth, which slipped into single digits in Q1FY24 after a gap of nine quarters.
There has been a sharp recovery in the headline corporate earnings in the April-June 2023 quarter (Q1FY24), after a dismal showing by early bird companies. The combined net profit of the 983 listed companies that have declared their quarterly results, so far, was up 64.7 per cent year-on-year to record a high of Rs 2.68 trillion in the first quarter, but growth in earnings remained lopsided because most of the incremental gains came from a handful of companies. Moreover, the quarterly numbers showed a continued slowdown in revenue growth.