Saurabh Agrawal, managing director and head, investment banking, has reason to feel pleased with his team at DSP Merrill Lynch -- his firm tops the M&A league table and should secure itself a reasonably good ranking in the debt and equity fund-raising sweepstakes by the time the year draws to a close.
Tata Housing's efforts at helping less privileged sections of society are commendable, but after a point it won't be able to do much for the simple reason that there aren't going to be enough lenders to give loans to these prospective home buyers.
The markets had run ahead of fundamentals and could slide further.
It would be incorrect to assume that the markets are cheaper when the Sensex is at 15,000 or that they are more expensive when it is at 20,000.
The idea of the MRP is becoming less relevant and should be replaced by portfolio pricing.
Customers have never had more choice; the more you talk the less you pay.
Acquiring Maytas Infrastructure could be his chance to show his organisation's ability to think big.
Some serious cost-cutting has resulted in significantly lower losses at JLR.
Revenue-share deals instead of fixed rentals will give retailers a better shot at profitability only over the long run.
It's also true that the traffic estimates for the sea link were made quite a few years back after which a good many offices have shifted from the central business district to the western suburbs because rents had become simply unaffordable.
Indian equity is clearly back in favour with overseas investors, and the consensus among investment bankers is that the election results have made all the difference.
After bidding adieu to his technology firm, this ex-Citibanker-turned-poet is now indulging in his latest passion of providing affordable housing for the masses.
The higher MAT and confusion over whether its gas is eligible for a tax holiday have hurt the stock.
The feeling was that the higher levy would prompt the company to increase prices in the process hurting volumes. But the unchanged central excise duty, analysts say, outweighs the VAT increases in Maharashtra and Delhi. As a result, estimates for the current year have been upped with expectations that the company could grow its top line by as much as 13-14 per cent driven by a 6-7 per cent rise in volumes.
It's wonderful that Jerry Rao is planning to build houses that cost Rs 700,000 or less. The former Citibanker's model is simple enough: land is bought with the equity capital while construction is financed through bank loans at market-related rates currently anywhere between 11 and 13 per cent.
The company has been doing well -- it gained market share in both the soaps and hair colour categories in the March 2009 quarter, which pushed up revenues by 26 per cent. Even after that soaps continue to do well as does the hair colour segment where the company is understood to have added market share in April and May. The Street probably also has high expectations of the new managing director.
The quality of the bank's loan book, which has perhaps grown far too fast, is a cause for concern. When the bank announced its annual results the number talked about was a reasonable Rs 8,000 crore. Now it appears that the standard loans restructured amount to nearly Rs 13,000 crore and taken together with pending applications is closer to Rs 21,600 crore or about 4 per cent of the loan book.
Why should promoters have an option to buy shares when other shareholders don't? Perhaps warrants can be done away with altogether since most promoters don't seem convinced about the value of their companies, says Shobhana Subramanian.
The Indian market must be re-rated but a further premium to emerging markets seems unjustified. The Indian market now trades way off its lows and at premium of around 50 per cent to emerging markets, compared with its long-term average of 8 per cent -- -in January 2008 it was trading at a premium of over 100 per cent. As Morgan Stanley says, broad market valuations as measured by market capitalisation to GDP, are now well past its historic average.
Chennai has just got its own news and entertainment channel, courtesy a 50:50 joint venture between NDTV Ltd and The Hindu.