The company plans to offer end-to-end logistics solutions where it has custodial charge of the cargo. Till the back-end warehouse infrastructure is ready at the airline's national hub in Nagpur, Gopinath's freighters will fly the Dubai-Mumbai-Delhi-Hong Kong route, offering dedicated cargo space to freight forwarders and serve anyone who wants to move international freight to these cities for time-definite delivery.
Falling sales at home have failed to douse the company's zeal to grow abroad.
Developer to bid for work from those who win the final contract.
Companies are either taking small government projects alone or bidding for larger ones with consortium partners. The companies, which had 18-75 per cent of their order books in property development, say they are facing payment delays of 20-90 days from some of the private developers, blocking their working capital requirements. Some of them take a week's advance payment from developers to execute their projects.
Reliance Retail has added 485 stores in the last one year, taking the total count to 950 and the footprint is now spread across 77 cities (58 in the last one year) across India. While his critics say Ambani may have lost the plot as the progress of his retail plans are nowhere near what he had sought to achieve, others feel the Reliance chief is just being pragmatic given the not-so-conducive environment for expansion in retail.
The prices of construction steel have come down nearly 37 per cent. The price of bitumen has come down by 22 per cent since mid-November, while diesel and cement prices have come down by 10 per cent. GMR infrastructure CFO A Subba Rao estimates that construction costs have come down by 20 per cent. Construction costs account for 70-75 per cent of the project costs; the other significant variable being interest costs.
After a lacklustre winter season sale, apparel retailers are now planning to cut their summer purchases by as much as 20 per cent to save holding cost and reduce pressure on working capital.
According to sources in the Future Group, it plans to tie up with international retailers in different segments. "We can certainly look at bringing in foreign capital to our subsidiaries now," said a group official, who did not wish to be quoted. Under the new guidelines, downstream investments by an Indian company that has foreign investment but is owned and controlled by Indians will not be considered as FDI.
Though end-of-season sale is common in the first week of February, what is interesting this time around is the quantum and timing of the offers. Retailers are giving away 20-25 per cent additional discounts, compared to the last year. Also, they began giving discounts at least three weeks before the ususal timing.
The retailer, which runs a supermarket chain under the More brand, is targeting annual sales of $4.5 billion (Rs 22,000 crore or Rs 220 billion) by March 2014 from Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) in the current financial year. The retailer clocked sales of Rs 500 in the previous year. In 2007, the company had talked about a Rs 9,000 crore (Rs 90 billion) investment plan.
Companies are trying to clean up their balance-sheets and make provisions for forex losses as they think the disclosures will not have a major bearing on their valuations, which are already down.
Most have pledged their shares as collateral to raise working capital or a term loan, to increase their holding or to fund an acquisition as a multinational had done to buy an Indian company. Companies are rushing to make disclosures on pledging of shares by their promoters after Sebi made it mandatory. Promoters have to disclose details of pledged shares if the same exceeds 25,000 shares in a quarter or 1 per cent of the total shareholding or voting rights of the company.
Less than half-a-dozen people have evinced interest in buying the eight apartments owned by the late Harshad Mehta and his family, partly due to a last-minute case filed by the stockbroker's mother, Rasila S Mehta.
Jaybharat Textiles & Real Estate, a textile company that forayed into real estate three years back, today has a market capitalisation higher than Grasim Industries or Tata Motors.
Most of the funds have not signed any deals in the past few months as realty prices fell sharply and economic slowdown deepened across the world, which slowed the flow of funds significantly. Red Fort plans to deploy Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) in the current quarter and is in talks with a Mumbai developer. But Bedi says finance is a big issue now as most of the projects have been delayed or are yet to take off.
These will be business and mid-market hotels that will sport brands such as Hilton, Hilton Garden Inn and Homewood Suites by Hilton (a long stay product). India is the second most important market for Hilton in Asia-Pacific after China, and accounts for 17 per cent of the 300-odd new hotels it plans to add in the region by 2017. It also expects India to account for 15-20 per cent of its revenues in the Asia-Pacific region by 2015.
The move is expected to give high retail exposure to its products in innumerable kirana stores in the country, without having to spend much on advertising and marketing expenses apart from generating business volumes. When contacted, Reliance Retail spokesperson said: "As a policy, we do not comment on speculation." In a recent reshuffle at the company, Reliance Fresh head Gunender Kapur was made head of private labels business in the company.
The managing director of a US-based pension fund blamed the fall on the carnage in stock markets globally and the heavy pullout by investors. "Last year saw unprecedented pullouts by hedge funds as they faced huge redemption pressure. Lots of investors believed they had paid too much and sold off. Most of the funds were listed in 2006 when realty prices were high. But now, prices have come down in most parts of the world."
Valuations of projects dated, says valuer. Also, angry shareholders could come together to oppose the proposed reverse merger.
Property developers expect to boost sales of homes and borrow funds at lower rates after the Reserve Bank of India on Friday reduced its key benchmark rate and cut the cash-reserve ratio requirement in a bid to help banks lower interest rates and lend more to cash-starved sectors, including the real estate. They are hopeful of attracting more overseas investment in projects as demand revives.
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