According to its DRHP filed in 2010, the company's net worth was just Rs 140 crore. Its total income for the financial year 2009-10 stood at Rs 119 crore and it had a net profit of Rs 16 crore. In sharp contrast, at the end of March 2021, Paytm's networth was Rs 6,535 crore and total income stood at Rs 3,187 crore.
The deluge of offerings in the primary market, a muted results season and increasing talks of a Fed taper may quicken the pace of overseas investors selling Indian equities in the near term. The next few weeks may see a dozen companies tap the market for initial public offerings and raise about Rs 30,000 crore. These include the likes of Zomato, Glenmark Life Sciences, Utkarsh Small Finance Bank and Seven Islands Shipping.
Zomato could get added to the MSCI and FTSE indices by the end of this year, while an entry to the Nifty or the Sensex would be challenging before the second half of 2022, said Brian Freitas, an analyst at independent research provider Smartkarma, in note. "With nearly the entire pre-IPO shares locked up for one year, the free float will be very low and the stock will need to move higher to around Rs 328 per share (4.3 times over possible IPO price of Rs 76) to be included in the Nifty index (with no change in the market cap of the smallest index constituent). "We can be reasonably certain that Zomato will not be included in the Nifty index till the September 2022 rebalance at the earliest," he said.
'Q1 is going to bear the brunt of the second wave, exposing full-year GDP forecasts to downward revisions, unless phase-3 of vaccination is executed quickly.'
Food delivery company Zomato's Rs 9,375-crore initial public offering (IPO) will open for subscription on July 14, said investment banking sources on Wednesday. The company initially was looking to raise Rs 7,500 crore through the offering. Investment banking sources said the issue size has been increased because of the robust demand from investors.
The company, backed by China's Ant Group, is planning to issue fresh shares worth Rs 7,500 crore in the IPO. This will make this India's third-largest offering after Reliance Power and DLF.
Brokerages are expanding the universe of stocks they cover amid a boom in the market. Several stocks in the mid-cap universe are now tracked by more analysts than they were a year ago. For instance, SBI Cards and Payment Services is now tracked by 17 brokerages, compared to just four a year ago.
'As valuations of large-caps appeared to be out of whack, investors started lapping up quality mid-caps and small-caps, which were available at relatively comfortable valuations.'
The clarification by the National Securities Depository (NSDL) - which is tasked with monitoring foreign portfolio investor (FPI) investment in domestic stocks - that the accounts of top investors in Adani group stocks remain 'active' has helped prevent a $500-million selloff of shares. Analysts said a freeze of the FPI accounts, as reported by some media outlets, could have prompted global index providers to cut weighting of four Adani group companies from their global indices. Brian Freitas, an analyst at independent research provider Smartkarma, said if the FPI accounts were indeed frozen, FTSE and MSCI would have reduced weighting of Adani group companies at the next rebalance, since it would have meant that the large part of the free float was not tradeable.
Easier dilution norms for mega initial public offerings (IPOs) have come into effect. Companies with post-listing market capitalisation (m-cap) of more than Rs 1 trillion will not be required to dilute a minimum of 10 per cent. The move to relax dilution norms is seen as a precursor to Life Insurance Corporation's IPO. The central government has said companies with an m-cap exceeding Rs 1 trillion will have to dilute Rs 5,000 crore and at least 5 per cent of their m-cap. Experts said the earlier framework discouraged large companies from listing since they were forced to offload a large volume of shares during the time of their IPO.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has directed Franklin Templeton MF to pay Rs 5 crore as penalty, return over Rs 450 crore collected as 22-month investment management and advisory fees, and imposed a two-year ban on launching new debt schemes for alleged irregularities in running six of its debt schemes that were shuttered last year.
'While the country has been hit hard from a strong second wave of Covid, we believe the markets are willing to look through that.'
Domestic equity markets are in elite company. In May, Indian markets joined select developed markets (DMs) such as the US, UK and Germany to record new all-time highs. Among emerging markets (EMs), Brazil is the other market to have logged new highs this month. Asian peers such as South Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand are currently between 2 per cent and 10 per cent below their previous highs made earlier this year. The domestic markets were among the worst-performing major global markets in April amid a lethal second-wave of covid-19 infections.
With India's market capitalisation surpassing the $3-trillion mark, stocks across the board are adding heft. The upper limit for qualifying as a mid-cap stock -under the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) definition for mutual fund reclassification - has hit an all-time high of $5.4 billion. In 2013, amid the taper tantrum sell-off, it had dropped to just $1 billion, shows an analysis done by ICICI Securities.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has deferred the diktat requiring foreign investors to disclose their mobile number, email addresses and income details to depositories, a move believed to be aimed at curbing practices such as round tripping and money laundering. "Based on the representations received from MIIs (market infrastructure institutions), Sebi has decided to extend the deadline for making 6-KYC attributes mandatory for new accounts opened by 1 month to July 1, 2021. "Participants are accordingly requested to take note of the above and ensure compliance," NSDL said in a note on Tuesday. The regulator is also meeting custodians this week to thrash out a solution and address investors' concerns.
'Personally, I have reached that stage where I think material things can't give you any satisfaction.'
'It is critical that the Covid curve does not have a fat tail and the chain is broken quickly.'
The country's dash to a $3-trillion market cap is more a case of teamwork, than a few members doing most of the heavy lifting. Sample this: The share of top 100 companies to India's total market cap (BSE-listed companies' m-cap) is 67.3 per cent currently, less than what it has been when the nation hit previous milestones, such as $1 trillion, $1.5 trillion in 2007 or $2.5 trillion more recently in December 2020. In 2007, when India's m-cap topped the $1-trillion mark for the first time, the top 100 companies accounted for three-fourths of the total m-cap; at $1.5 trillion, the share was almost 80 per cent.
Thirteen companies have joined the Rs 1-trillion-plus market capitalisation club this year, so far. This even as the benchmark Sensex has gained less than 3 per cent on a year-to-date basis, underscoring the bullish undercurrent in the broader market. The trend shows a harsh second wave of Covid-19, subsequent lockdowns, and hit to the economic activity has made little dent into India Inc or shareholders' wealth. At the start of the year, there were 29 companies with a market value of more than Rs 1 trillion.
Top officials said asking employees other than the fund management team to mandatorily invest a fifth of their salary goes against the principle of natural justice.