Calculated guesses, taking a position on what the future could hold
While Zee managed single-digit growth in revenue, HT Media's income dipped marginally, reports Urvi Malvania/Business Standard.
Consolidated revenue rose to a record Rs 163,854 crore.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd's plans for investing Rs 75,000 crore in solar, batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen could create valuation of $36 billion (Rs 2.6 lakh crore) for the new energy business, Wall Street brokerage Bernstein Research said in a report. Reliance currently has three verticals -- oil-to-chemical (O2C) business that houses its oil refineries, petrochemical plants and fuel retailing business; digital services that comprises telecom arm Jio; and retail including e-commerce. New Energy will be the fourth vertical. At the company's annual general meeting of shareholders last month, Ambani announced a plan to invest Rs 75,000 crore in a new energy business over the next 3 years in the next stage in its transformation.
Some of the top indebted companies likely to face financial headwinds in the coming quarters include NTPC, PowerGrid, Tata Steel, Adani Power, JSW Steel, UPL, and Steel Authority of India. Together these 201 companies owed Rs 14.9 trillion to their lenders at the end of September 30, 2019, up 4.1 per cent year-on-year (YoY) during the first half of FY20.
Mobile operators with the exception of Reliance Jio are in a much worse financial condition than expected earlier. The combined borrowing of the four incumbent operators - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) - reached an all-time high of Rs 3.85 trillion at the end of March this year. The companies' combined debt was up 22.4 per cent year-on-year last financial year against 8.3 per cent growth in their borrowing in the previous year. As a result, the incumbent operators' debt-equity ratio shot up to an unsustainably high level of 6.83X at the end of March this year from 2.3X at the end of March 2020. This was largely due to big losses reported by all these companies last financial year. The four incumbent operators racked up combined net losses of Rs 70,000 crore in FY21.
RCom is expected to have a 50% stake, Aircel 40% and MTS 10%
Historically, Tata Steel has always been among the biggest companies in the group in terms of m-cap, revenue, and profit but its fortunes began to decline after 2010 due to a sharp decline in the profitability of its European operations that it had acquired in 2007. The company was hit by a sharp rise in its debt level after this acquisition. First, it lost out to Tata Motors in terms of revenue in FY11 and then in March 2015, Titan beat it to become the third-biggest firm in the group in terms of m-cap. In FY20, TCS reported higher revenue and Tata Steel had become the third biggest company in that terms.
The parade of some of the most interesting first-quarter corporate performances continues
With the increased death rate in the ongoing second wave of Covid-19, domestic cement companies are in no better condition than they were in the April-June quarter of FY21 when the country faced nationwide lockdown. "This wave has had high death rate which has impacted the business. "We are in no better situation than last (year) April. "Deaths of drivers, dealers, contractors and also employees have hit the industry really very hard since April (FY22)," M Ravinder Reddy, director of Bharathi Cements said.
It plans to lower employment costs with the estimated reduction in employee numbers, about two-thirds of which are expected to be office-based white-collar roles - a majority expected at its Netherlands unit.
'Vodafone Idea has losses running over Rs 10,000 crore in the last four quarters.' 'It has long-term debt of about Rs 1.15 trillion.' 'Even post-issue, the debt service numbers won't be good,' points out Devangshu Datta.
Unveiling his infrastructure conglomerate's green vision, billionaire Gautam Adani on Tuesday said his group will invest $20 billion over the next 10 years in renewable energy generation and component manufacturing and will produce the world's cheapest green electron. The port-to-energy conglomerate plans to triple its renewable power generation capacity over the next four years, foray into green hydrogen production, power all data centres with renewable energy, turn its ports into net carbon zero by 2025, and plans to spend over 75 per cent of capital expenditure until 2025 in green technologies, he said. Speaking at JP Morgan India Investor Summit, Adani Group chairman said the USD 20 billion investment will be in renewable energy generation, component manufacturing, transmission and distribution.
India's second-largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported a net profit of Rs 1,134 crore for the September 2021 quarter, and said it is witnessing strong business momentum with growth in 4G customers and increase in mobile ARPU. This is against a loss (attributable to owners of the parent) of 763.2 crore during the year-ago quarter, the company said in a statement. Its consolidated revenues for the second quarter of FY21 stood at Rs 28,326.4 crore, up 18.8 per cent year-on-year (on a comparable basis) and 13 per cent y-o-y on a reported basis, it added.
If Vodafone Idea shuts, a bulk of the high-paying ARPU customers will move to Airtel as Reliance Jio does not have a comprehensive postpaid offering like it, and have aggressively preferred to play in the prepaid market. The bulk of Vodafone Idea customers use 2G phones and only a few of them use data. It will be easier for Airtel to woo these customers as they can shift seamlessly to its 2G network without changing handsets or even SIM cards,
Ambani said Reliance ended last year with a net debt of Rs 154,478 crore.
'We plan to touch Rs 1 trillion of Amul brand's turnover in the next five years.'
Thus far in FY21, BSE, NSE have rallied 70 per cent and 71 per cent, respectively.
While Mukesh Ambani-led RIL posted a 108 per cent YoY rise in profit after tax for Q4FY21 at Rs 13,227 crore, it fell short of Bloomberg estimate of Rs 13,704 crore.
Weeks after confusion over three Mauritius-based funds whipsawing shares of Adani group firms, billionaire Gautam Adani on Monday said that "twisted narrative" seems to imply that companies have regulatory powers over their shareholders and can compel disclosures. Shares of port-to-energy group nosedived last month after reports that accounts of three of the six Mauritius-based funds that have invested most of their money in Adani group firms had been frozen by the national share depository. The three funds owned about $6 billion of shares across the conglomerate.
Successful inroads in new markets could drive Escorts' national share above the current 11 per cent, reports Ajay Modi.
Beating forecasts, ArcelorMittal on Wednesday reported a 18.5 per cent rise in its core profits (EBITDA) to $1.713 billion during the third quarter as it fared better almost on all parameters, including rise in steel shipments and iron ore sales.
The 3G, 4G data and Airtel Money services are the next growth engines for the company in Africa.
Unlike the race to buy airwaves by telecom companies, airports by infrastructure companies and city gas networks by energy companies, the race to develop super apps by consumer-facing companies in India has not brushed up against any regulatory issues. Officials at the ministry of electronics and information technology and at other regulators are happy they do not have to meddle in who among the Tata group, Reliance Industries Ltd, Flipkart or Paytm will manage to build an app that sweeps in customers. Unlike separate apps a customer uses on her mobile to order groceries, buy food or airline tickets or just make payments, a super app can perform all these functions.
More than a year of Covid-19 has pushed most businesses into gloom but Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) managed to reduce its gross debt 25 per cent, enabling it to turn towards its next phase of capital expenditure that has come in the form of a Rs 75,000-crore plan for green energy and power storage. The company managed to stay afloat during the pandemic because of its large presence in the consumer-centric businesses of retail and telecommunication (see chart: "A new Reliance"). These two businesses constituted 45 per cent of its EBITDA during FY21 from 36 per cent in FY20.
Sacking Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho cost Manchester United 19.6 million pounds ($25.10 million), the English Premier League soccer club said.
As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic abates, India's automakers are hopeful of a quick recovery in sales volumes, led by better rural sentiment, low interest rates, improved availability of finance and a gradual uptick in business and economic activity. In fact, companies have started to ramp up production already, encouraged by high order books and the growing preference for private transport in both rural and urban areas as a means to avoid infections. In early April, the industry had been bullish as the sales trend for March showed that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic had been left behind. The total vehicle sales had grown by 77 per cent, albeit on a lower base, and for the past few months, sales had consistently touched 300,000 units per month.
After the hit of the pandemic, India Inc is now worried about the adverse impact of inflation and higher commodity prices on their revenues and margins. The inflation scare is the strongest among manufacturers of consumer goods such as automobiles, consumer durables, and fast-moving capital goods (FMCG). Companies across sectors fear they will not be able to pass on the hike in input costs to their consumers due to weak demand, which, in turn, would lead to a hit on margins and profitability in the forthcoming quarters.
According to the report, export-oriented sectors like IT services, pharmaceuticals and textiles will, in aggregate, report EBITDA margin expansion of nearly 100 bps, while margin is likely to decline by about 50 bps for other sectors during this period.
Fund managers said investors remained positive on the pharma manufacturing activity in India, which further strengthened during the Covid-19 period, on account of restrictions imposed on pharma imports from China.
While HackerEarth has clients and developers globally, the US consists more than a third of the revenue stream, and plans to ramp it up to 60 per cent of the total share.
Moody's said together, proceeds from these transactions will result in a $ 16 billion reduction in RIL's net debt.
ArcelorMittal on Thursday reported a net loss of $728 million for the first quarter ended March 31
Anil Agarwal, chairman of the Vedanta group, has not started the New Year on a good note.
The duo bought additional shares in pharmaceutical companies Lupin and Jubilant Life Sciences, along with Agro Tech Foods and NCC during Q2FY21
Airtel CEO said, the 5G ecosystem is yet to develop in India and the prices are very high. Telecom companies including Vodafone Idea (VI) and Reliance Jio have also said that the current prices are exorbitant.
The company is targeting 100 million subscribers in shortest possible time, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani said
According to the foreign brokerage major, after two quarters of 'near-zero' growth aggregate headline profit for Sensex companies, it is expected to show a weak recovery.
Tata Steel delivered one of its best financial performances ever in the third quarter of the current financial year, and surpassed its deleveraging target of $1 billion. In an interview, Koushik Chatterjee, executive director and chief financial officer, Tata Steel, tells Ishita Ayan Dutt that the company will continue to focus on deleveraging but profitable and value-added growth will be equally important.