Amid increasing volatility and recession fears looming over global markets that has led to the decline in wealth of a number of billionaires, Gautam Adani was the only one to buck the trend. The billionaire added $43.3 billion in net worth between Diwali 2021 (November 4) and this year's Diwali (October 24) according to Bloomberg data. He added more wealth than the gross domestic product (GDP)of more than a dozen Indian states.
Foreign currency loans raised by Indian companies nosedived to $210 million in the September quarter (Q2), 93.3 per cent less than the year-ago period when five firms raised $3.1 billion. The Q2 amount is the lowest since December 2003 quarter when India Inc raised $191 million. Companies cited volatility in the currency markets, sharp rise in interest rates in the United States, and fund availability in India as the main reasons behind the sharp fall.
Fuelled by the $57.8-billion merger of HDFC twins (HDFC Ltd and HDFC Bank), M&A (merger and acquisition) transactions in India touched a record high of $124.2 billion in the first half of 2022-23. Bankers said with several transactions, including the government's stake sale in IDBI Bank and Hindustan Zinc in the pipeline, the ongoing financial year will end up as the best year for M&A activity in the country. Apart from the HDFC transaction, the $6.5-billion acquisition of Holcim stake by the Adani family and L&T's $3.2-billion acquisition of Mindtree added to the record transactions in the first half of FY23.
Expenditure on new projects slowed down for the second quarter in a row amid an uncertain global environment and higher borrowing costs. There were new projects worth a cumulative Rs 3.26 trillion in the July-September period, according to data provided by project tracker Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). This figure is much less than Rs 4.39 trillion in the June quarter (Q1FY23) and Rs 8.46 trillion in the March quarter (Q4FY22).
The Piramal group and Zurich Insurance have decided to jointly bid for Reliance General Insurance, a subsidiary of Reliance Capital. The groups had earlier submitted separate bids for the general insurance business of bankrupt Reliance Capital. Both Piramal and Zurich will hold 50 per cent each in the proposed special purpose vehicle (SPV).
The Tata group is planning to invest $90 billion in new industries such as mobile components plant, semiconductor, electric vehicles, batteries, renewables energy and e-commerce by 2027. The Tata group's investment in India is far higher than the $75-billion investments planned by Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries and $55-billion investment planned by the Adani group in the next five years in the country, the Economist reported recently. The investment by the Tata group is a shift in its strategy to focus more in the home markets instead of international markets where the group lost money.
India's crude oil imports are coming in from a changing mix of countries, with the top three accounting for around 60 per cent of total imports. Russia emerged as the largest source of crude oil imports for India in June, as per the latest available data from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The data which is released with a lag, showed that Russian imports accounted for 24 per cent of the total crude imports into the country.
The Adani group said Reliance Infrastructure, part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, had initiated arbitration on one specific dispute under the Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) in December 2021 with a claim for just Rs 500 crore. Adani said it has filed counterclaims against the Ambani company. The Adani group firm, Adani Electricity was reacting to a Reliance Infrastructure statement of last week, which said it has filed an arbitration claim of Rs 13,400 crore against Adani Group in the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA). Reliance had cited a breach of a December 2017 share purchase agreement relating to the transfer of its Mumbai power distribution business to Adani Transmission.
The states recording the highest number of such deaths include Karnataka (14.3 per cent), Maharashtra (13.2 per cent), and Madhya Pradesh (11.3 per cent). Tamil Nadu (9.4 per cent) and Telangana (7.5 per cent) were the other two in the top five.
'The power sector accounts for much of the financial burden of state governments in India.'
Nearly four decades ago, when Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was a young chartered accountant in training, he was paid a conveyance of Rs 60. Deductions would take away Rs 15 from this princely sum and he was left with Rs 45 by the time the allowance made its way to his hands. He would save as much as he could from this amount, so that he would have a small amount to spend when he met his friends on the weekend at Chicken Centre. This was an eatery popular with the young at the time, perhaps because food and drink were affordable even for those new to the workforce.
Reliance Industries (RIL) is likely to be the lone bidder for Mangalore-based JBF Petrochemicals, which is up for sale after defaulting on bank loans worth Rs 5,000 crore. The lenders for the second time extended the deadline for submission of bids, which had ended on August 20, as several players, including public sector companies, were redrawing their acquisition plans, said people in the know. "There were several companies which had submitted their expressions of interest (EoIs) for the company but after due diligence decided to exit the race," said a source close to the development. "The new deadline for submitting financial offers is August-end," the source said.
George Acland from Great Britain ran a coffee plantation in Sri Lanka and set up India's first jute mill in 1855. He raised capital and imported the machinery for the mill on the banks of the Hooghly in West Bengal. His company wasn't a great success, but his pioneering work paved the way for India to dominate the jute industry.
The number of serious incidents has more than doubled in the last seven years.
Investors are pushing back more often against companies' resolutions on what is paid out to top executives. In the first four months of financial year 2022-23 (FY23), there have already been five such rejections, according to shareholder voting data from tracker Adrian, a platform maintained by the proxy advisory firm Institutional Investor Advisory Services India (IiAS). Two of these have been at multiplex chain PVR and direct-to-home company Dish TV India.
Reliance Industries, the Tata group, Bharti Airtel and Aditya Birla are among Indian conglomerates that have hedged their revenue and costs linked to the US dollar, giving them financial cover as the rupee fell past 80 against the greenback on Tuesday.
During Abe's tenure, Japan had announced support for a number of major projects. These included the bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, besides allocations for a freight corridor between Mumbai and New Delhi.
The Tata Tech IPO will be the first from the Tata group since TCS listed its shares in 2004.
As the Indian currency hovers around its lowest versus the US greenback, several smaller and mid-sized companies are expected to face rough weather as almost 44 per cent of the foreign loans taken by Indian companies remained unhedged. According to the data sourced from the Reserve Bank of India, Indian companies raised around $38.2 billion in the financial year ended in March. Of this, only 56 per cent of the loans are hedged while the rest of the foreign loans remain unhedged, thus risking the companies to forex volatility.
Institutional shareholders of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) are expecting big-ticket announcements from the company, including timeline for listing of its telecom and retail subsidiaries. They expect this to unlock value in the company, which has seen a sharp fall in market valuation on Friday. This is due to windfall tax imposed by the Centre on refiners and oil producers.
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