Accenture's Q1 FY22 results have sent a wave of cheer among analysts, as the company raised its revenue guidance and said it expects double-digit growth in outsourcing, up from single digit to low double-digit growth expected earlier. Accenture's financial year ends on August 31. The company raised its revenue outlook for FY22 to 19-22 per cent in local currency, up from 12-15 per cent earlier.
After dropping to a low of Rs 1,298 apiece, the stock finished at Rs 1,380, its lowest level since November 22, the second day of listing.
'The markets haven't corrected, that doesn't mean that they will only go up and up.'
The spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has made Indian companies persist with their policy of banning overseas trips and allowing only essential travel within India. The IT services firms, which had planned to ask their employees to return to the workplace, are also waiting and watching the Covid-19 situation before fully opening up their offices. Large conglomerates like the Tatas, Birla, JSW and Reliance are continuing with the mandatory social distancing and masking policies within their office premises.
'In the overall global portfolio, India's weighting has come down in the past seven months.'
'Investing in the stocks of holdcos can be a very efficient and inexpensive way of gaining exposure to the stocks of India's reputable growing business houses.'
'Sebi has to make sure that investor interests are protected and at the same time, there isn't over-regulation so that companies don't get discouraged to list here.'
'They have helped stabilise our market by acting as a counterbalance to foreign funds.'
As the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 takes centrestage, vaccine makers in India are of the view that scaling up the existing vaccines to make them more effective is possible.
The share of total health expenditure as part of the gross domestic product (GDP) went down to 3.3 per cent in 2017-18 from 3.8 per cent in the previous two years, according to the national health account data released on Monday by the health ministry. The share of government expenditure as part of total expenditure as well as GDP has gone up from from 3.78 per cent to 5.12 per cent between 2013-14 and 2017-18, which could also explain a decline seen in out of pocket expenditure in 2017-18. Health ministry also emphasised the increase in the government health expenditure as part of the total GDP from 1.15 per cent in 2013-14 to 1.35 per cent in 2017-18.
After ramping up production to meet the steep demand spike during the Covid-19 pandemic, Indian medical device makers are now struggling with idle capacity. According to industry estimates, around a third of the installed capacity, especially for consumables, disposables, small-ticket electronic items, etc., is lying unutilised. Sample this: India used to produce just 6.24 million pieces of PPE kits per annum before the pandemic, but by June this was ramped up to 233.87 million pieces per annum.
'We have focused on profitable revenue, cash generating businesses, throughout our journey.'
'Antiviral treatment will have no change. Spike protein change may affect the immunity protection.'
Star Health and Allied Insurance's Rs 7,250-crore initial public offering (IPO), the third largest this year and eighth largest ever, just about managed to make it despite a poor response from investors, garnering just 79 per cent subscription, forcing the investment bankers to prune offer for sale (OFS) component. This is the second large offering after digital payments major Paytm this year to receive a lukewarm response from investors, a sign that despite the IPO frenzy investors are discerning when it comes to pricing. As Star Health didn't meet the profitability criteria, its IPO required a mandatory 75 per cent subscription from qualified institutional buyers (QIB).
'Any normalisation exercise will bring its share of volatility.'
With around 2 million Covid vaccine doses likely to get wasted in December, leading hospital chains have now started to give it gratis to citizens. Sohini Das and Ruchika Chitravanshi report.
Moving over 520,000 employees to a digital work model is no mean feat. Having done so, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is taking these learnings to help clients digitise their work models. Swiss Re is one such client. For the global information technology services firm with a headcount of 528,748 as of end-September, the shift to a single human resource (HR) platform started a few months before the pandemic started, when TCS moved its HR solutions to Microsoft's platform. Siva Ganesan, global head, Microsoft business unit, TCS, still remembers the early days when TCS embarked upon a move from an existing software platform to a digital medium for communications on a Microsoft Office platform.
'I can tell shareholders we're going to be very responsible with our capital, we're going to be absolutely execution focused.'
The BSE's arm Asia Index has announced Wipro will replace Bajaj Auto in the 30-share Sensex. The move is part of a semi-annual rebalancing exercise and will take effect when the market opens for trading on December 20. On account of the rejig, Wipro will see buying by passive funds to the tune of Rs1,300 crore, while Bajaj Auto will see selling of Rs 636 crore, estimate analysts.
A nasal vaccine, one expert said, is a "fantastic idea" for two reasons -- one, it can potentially create sterile immunity, and two, it is easy to administer and thus scalable.