India witnessed 22 initial public offers worth over $2.5 billion in the first three months of 2021 amid "high momentum" in the country's capital markets and the trend is likely to stay bullish in the current quarter also, according to a report. Leading consultancy EY India's IPO (Initial Public Offer) report released on Wednesday showed that consumer products and retail, diversified industrial products, automotive and transportation were the most active sectors in terms of the number of IPOs in the 2021 first quarter. The IPOs include both in the main as well as SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) markets.
Around 70 companies have received IPO clearance from markets regulator Sebi, but are waiting for election results.
Indian rupee, which earlier this week touched an all-time low, is likely to remain under pressure and may test new levels as a fallout of the US Federal Reserve indicating more interest rate hikes, experts said. The aggressive rate hikes will dampen demand and increase the possibility of a recession in the US. This could accelerate the pace of capital outflows, weaken the rupee and raise the threat of imported inflation.
According to EY's private equity deal tracker, Brookfield-Reliance Jio's $ 3.7 billion deal is the largest ever PE/VC deal in India, surpassing the $ 2.5 billion investment made by Softbank in Flipkart in 2017.
Businesses with monthly turnover of over Rs 50 lakh will have to mandatorily pay at least 1 per cent of their GST liability in cash, the finance ministry said as it moved to curb evasion by fake invoicing. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has introduced Rule 86B in Goods and Services Tax (GST) rules which restricts use of input tax credit (ITC) for discharging GST liability to 99 per cent. "... The registered person shall not use the amount available in electronic credit ledger to discharge his liability towards output tax in excess of 99 per cent of tax liability, in cases where the value of taxable supply ... in a month exceeds Rs 50 lakh," the CBIC said.
Ruia, a chartered accountant whose business ranged from sugar to textiles and heavy engineering to tyres, refused to comment on queries about his interest in Air India.
Among manufacturing companies that went to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), chemicals and metal firms witnessed more resolutions while companies in the labour intensive (employment friendly) leather and textile sectors mostly get liquidated, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
Despite the $11.7 billion raised by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) through stake sales, venture investments in 2020 have declined by a fifth to $28.9 billion till September, consultancy firm EY said in a report on Thursday. Since mid-March, coronavirus infections started getting reported in the country, which has now become the second highest globally in terms of numbers. The lockdowns severely dented economic activity, leading to a 23.9 per cent contraction in the gross domestic product (GDP) for the April-June period and expectations of a 9.5 per cent contraction by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for 2020-21.
'The main thing Cyrus left is to tell us that you can be a business leader by being good.' 'He practiced that in all of his dealings, in all of his decisions -- in the way he thought, the way he behaved and indeed as he spoke.'
Initial share sales are set to dazzle the Dalal Street in 2022 too as companies are expected to garner up to Rs 1.5 lakh crore in the New Year, continuing with the bullish momentum after 2021 turned out to be the best IPO year in two decades for the Indian market. Excessive liquidity and increased retail investor participation ensured a persistent euphoria in the Initial Public Offer (IPO) space wherein companies mopped up more than Rs 1.2 lakh crore this year even as pandemic gloom shadowed the broader economy. In 2022, the higher amount of funds through the primary market will be largely driven by the mega IPO of state-owned Life Insurance Corp (LIC).
India has emerged as one of the top three choices for investments in the next 2-3 years, with more than two-thirds of respondents in a survey of multinational companies (MNCs) citing the country as their number one choice for future investments. According to the FDI survey released on Tuesday by CII in association with EY, about half of the respondents see India amongst the top three economies or leading manufacturing destinations of the world by 2025.
Even at early stage, start-ups are raising more money faster owing to the rise of a lot of specialised early-stage VCs and emergence of seed-stage programmes.
Businesses that have not filed GSTR-3B returns in the preceding two months will not be able to file details of outward supplies in GSTR-1 from September 1, GSTN has said. While businesses file GSTR-1 of a particular month by the 11th day of the subsequent month, GSTR-3B, through which businesses pay taxes, is filed in a staggered manner between 20th-24th day of the succeeding month. In an advisory to taxpayers, GSTN, which manages the technology backbone for Goods and Services Tax, said that Rule-59(6) of Central GST Rules which provides for restriction in filing of GSTR-1, will come into effect from September 1, 2021.
Indian firms, which experts say stand to gain from the European Union's upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), are struggling to understand the policies.
Concessional rate of tax on dividends received by Indian companies from foreign subsidiaries will be done away with from April 1, a change that may hamper global expansion of Indian companies and compel some firms to move their headquarters out of India to geographies such as Singapore and Dubai. At present, dividends received by Indian companies from their foreign subsidiaries are subject to a concessional tax rate of 15 per cent under Section 115BBD of the Income Tax (I-T) Act. The provisions of this section shall not apply from assessment year 2023-24 onwards, according to the Finance Bill.
Falling valuations, slowing funding rounds and faltering investor sentiment seem to have prompted many start-ups to lay off employees in a bid to conserve cash. The latest to do so is SoftBank-backed Cars24, a leading e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, which has laid off over 600 staff, according to sources in the know. The move, they said, is aimed at conserving cash amid cautious investor sentiment and a slowdown in funding.
The reopening of schools and colleges has sparked a crisis in the edtech sector with falling valuations, slowing funding rounds and faltering investor sentiment. In a totally altered, post-pandemic landscape where students are back at school and colleges, companies are scrambling to revert to bricks-and-mortar tuition centres and adopting a hybrid model of offline and online education. Demand for online tuition has fallen, affecting the revenue of edtech companies in recent months. After two years of booming revenues, some experts say the sector is looking at a possible meltdown.
The controversy over the goods and services tax (GST) rate on food products refuses to die. Now, the Gujarat-based authority of advance rulings (AAR) has ruled that 'parathas' would attract 18 per cent GST. The applicant, Vadilal Industries, sought to know whether various kinds of 'parathas' supplied by them would attract five per cent GST in line with 'khakhra', plain chapati or 'roti'.
The expected interest rate hike in the US and the resultant volatility in the domestic secondary market could play a dampener to the over Rs 2-trillion initial public offering (IPO) pipeline in 2022. IPOs in 2022 look promising, with as many as 35 companies holding the Securities and Exchange Board of India's approval to raise roughly Rs 50,000 crore. Another 33 companies are waiting for the regulator's nod to raise around Rs 60,000 crore next year.
The government has extended the deadline for filing GST annual return and audit report for the 2018-19 fiscal year by a month, till October 31.
Currently, Deloitte, EY and KPMG with their associates work as statutory auditors of most of the top league domestic IT services firms. Owing to many alleged auditing lapses, the regulators have either imposed restrictions on the audit firms or are seeking to do so.
EY Foundation India and India Paryavaran Sahayak Foundation have come up with a cost-efficient and scalable solution. The project involves spreading awareness and driving usage of in-field straw management practices among farmers, to reduce the air pollution caused due to crop residue burning.
The study is based on responses from over 40 organisations in India across sectors to gauge the success factors, challenges, collaboration landscape and growth areas for divestments in India.
IT and ITeS companies accounted for $28.1 billion of the total investment pie during the first nine months of 2021.
The government has reduced the tariff value for import of edible oil, including palm oil, by up to $112 per tonne, a move which experts said can lead to lower domestic prices. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), through a notification, has cut the tariff import value of crude palm oil by $86 per tonne, and of RBD and crude palmolein by $112 per tonne each. It also reduced the base import price of crude soyabean oil by $37 per tonne. The changes in tariff value of edible oil are effective from Thursday (June 17).
India is currently home to 52 unicorn startups and one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems.
The jury is still out whether the GST will lower or increase your monthly budget, says Priya Nair.
USL board said its second forensic audit by EY has revealed fund diversion worth Rs 1,225 cr to Mallya companies.
The government has notified mandatory requirement of e-invoicing for B2B transactions for businesses with a turnover over Rs 100 crore with effect from January 1, 2021. Under Goods and Services Tax (GST) law, e-invoicing for business-to-business (B2B) transactions is mandatory for companies with turnover of over Rs 500 crore from October 1. In a notification, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said e-invoicing will be extended to businesses with a turnover over Rs 100 crore from January 1.
In 2017, when Infosys announced that Salil Parekh would be its next chief executive officer (CEO) and managing director (MD), very few in the industry or the analyst community doubted his ability to bring the company back to a healthy growth trajectory, improve morale within the company and, more importantly, win the promoters' trust and investor confidence. There were reasons for this confidence. He was not only the deputy CEO of the Paris-headquartered IT services major Capgemini, but also one of the only non-European faces on the executive board of the company.
Last year, it was not just the economy that slowed hiring. Employers were also unable to complete the verification process because of the lockdowns, resulting in delays in hiring and an increase in discrepancies between an employee's professed abilities and the reality. The experience is driving many companies to automation. In a recent EY survey, 56 per cent of the companies said they'd automated their processes, while 72 per cent felt technology could be leveraged to digitise employee records.
By 2022, the entire job landscape would undergo drastic change.
Supplying food to schools under mid-day meal scheme, pre-schools and anganwadis is exempt from GST, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has said. Issuing a set of clarification on certain decisions taken by the GST Council in its 43rd meeting on May 28, the CBIC said it had received representations regarding applicability of GST on the issues as to whether serving of food in schools under mid-day meals scheme would be exempt if such supplies are funded by government grants and/or corporate donations. Under the goods and services tax (GST), any catering service, including mid-day meals, provided to an educational institution is exempt from the levy.
'IIM Ahmedabad has seen one of the best placement seasons ever and this change can be attributed to the markets opening up after the pandemic.'
Probable reasons that led to failure of the sale process include 24 per cent government stake and corresponding rights, high debt, volatile crude oil prices, fluctuations in exchange rate, changes in macro environment, profitability track record of bidders and restriction on bidding by individuals.
Of the 59 IPOs for which the data is available, 36 IPOs received mega responses of more than 10x (of which, six IPOs more than 100x), while eight IPOs were oversubscribed more than 3x.
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The total value of M&As involving Indian companies surged nearly 63 per cent to $7.8 billion in the first three months of 2016, primarily spurred by big-ticket divestment transactions.
Recently, the finance ministry waived off basic customs duty and health cess on imported oxygen and related equipment for three years.
'It is surprising and unfortunate that unfounded allegations are now being made without any reference to me whatsoever,' Vijay Mallya said.