In a curious move, Reliance Industries' (RIL) executive director and Mukesh Ambani's trusted aide PMS Prasad pledged 600,000 shares of the company last month, which is 93.75 per cent of the total shares he owns in RIL. Prasad owned a total of 640,000 RIL shares and his compensation stood at Rs 11.15 crore in FY20.
The government has sold SGBs worth Rs 1,990 crore in April and May alone.
The RBI has set up a panel to review ATM charges, and fees levied by banks.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has assured Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that the Rs 12.05-trillion gross borrowing programme for FY22 will go through smoothly.
A common feature in India is the lag between the occurrence of frauds and the time they are actually reported.
This is the fifth straight cut in rates by the Reserve Bank of India in as much policy reviews in 2019, and takes the total quantum of reductions to 1.35 per cent.
The ongoing key reforms such as sops for manufacturing, easier labour laws, wooing FDI inflows and privatisation will help improve productivity and support long-term growth at 7.5-8 per cent levels, which if played out well, can help India contribute 15 per cent of global GDP growth by FY2026, says a report. According to a report pencilled by the India economist at UBS Securities, Tanvee Gupta Jain, the country has the lowest manufacturing costs among peers, even though China retains significant ecosystem advantages and despite that India and Vietnam appear most likely to benefit from a shift out of China.
India's natural gas production is projected to jump by 52 per cent to 122 million standard cubic metres per day by 2024 as state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Reliance Industries Ltd-BP combine raise output from the KG basin fields. Natural gas production in 2019-20 was 85 mmscmd, which is estimated to have fallen to 80 mmscmd in the following year, HDFC Securities said in a report. The output is projected to rise in the current fiscal that started on April 1 to 93 mmscmd, 107 mmscmd in the following year and 122 mmscmd in 2023-24, the brokerage estimated.
For large start-ups the US market is considered to be a preferred destination, as Indian investors were seen as hesitant to pay the kind of valuation private equity investors or the US markets pay. However, Zomato's listing has quashed these notions.
The fairy tale turnaround story has, however, taken a few knocks after a second wave of the pandemic has brought a series of default notices and has posed the toughest test for the 55-year old Singh to save the airline he founded and sold to the Marans only to assume control later.
Two powerful US Senators have urged President Joe Biden not to impose provisions of the punitive Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act against India for buying the S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia.
Going forward, the February factory output may be impacted as several industries such as automobiles, technology, pharma and fashion have some exposure to imports of raw and intermediate materials from China.
Economists have said if a stimulus is needed it should be different from what was provided in 2008-09, when the economy faced the ripple effects of a global meltdown following the Lehman Brothers collapse.
Together, the top 10 business groups reported a pre-tax loss of Rs 19,342 crore during the January-March 2020 quarter, as against a profit before tax of around Rs 48,500 crore in the year-ago period and Rs 39,600 crore during the December quarter. While Vedanta was the worst hit. others included Aditya Birla, Bharti, Adani, Mahindra, and Tata.
While companies continue to face regulatory pressure leading to higher costs, they see an uptick from the launch of differentiated and high-margin products
MEIL has become one of the fastest growing and most successful infrastructure and engineering, procurement, and construction companies in the country in recent times.
While it took UPI three years to reach a billion transactions in a month, the next billion came in just a year. Digital payments, especially UPI, saw increased adoption in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As on July 31, the valuation of his shareholding in the company stood at Rs 9,830 crore.
The continuing fiscal stimulus is heavily tilted towards capex, to the extent that it chips away a part of revenue spending. Accounting for other areas of revenue expenditure, such as salaries, pensions, subsidies and defence (committed spend), the room to spend on welfare schemes, health and education will narrow in FY22.
The current slowdown has lasted for over 18 months and is the longest incident of sluggishness since 2006.
Zero-coupon bonds don't give out interest but are issued at a deep discount to the face value, making it difficult to ascertain the net present value.
The bank, which has suffered reverses following a massive spike in dud assets and also the dismissal of its chief executive Chanda Kochhar over governance issues, however, hinted that the worse is behind.
The robust revenue collection reinforces hope of a good economic performance in the third quarter of financial year 2020-21 after the surprising pickup seen in Q2.
Mutual funds (MFs) are set to be net sellers of Indian equities for the first time in the past seven financial years, having sold stocks worth about Rs 1.27 trillion so far in 2020-21 (FY21), making it the highest net sales on record in a financial year. MFs had been net buyers in the previous six financial years, including purchases of over Rs 1.41 trillion in FY18, Rs 88,152 crore in FY19, and Rs 91,814 crore in FY20. The last time they offloaded Indian equities was in FY14, when they net sold stocks worth Rs 21,159 crore. In contrast, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have ramped up buying in FY21, purchasing more than Rs 2.6 trillion worth of shares.
M&M, which owns a 75 per cent stake in SYMC, rescued the sport-utility vehicle (SUV) maker from near-insolvency in 2010 but has struggled to revive its fortunes.
Nirmala Sitharaman has designed the revenue mix in such a way that while Centre's share in taxes would grow a massive 25 per cent, states' share would grow a dismal 6 per cent.
The government must also look at rationalising the levies on the sector and close long standing legal disputes that are a big drag on performance of operators, he said.
'Hope they don't tinker around with capital gains tax in any way.'
It is advisable to stick to mid-caps with sustainable financial metrics rather than those offering the promise of faster growth.
While the lender has Rs 17,000 crore of retail assets and land parcels in Juhu, Borivali, Worli, and Chembur in Mumbai, there may be a disconnect between the quality of DHFL's books and the value bidders ascribe to it.
To be able to manage any such uptick, Indian IT services players are hiring more locals, and relying on hybrid work models.
The improved outlook on the Government of India announced by rating agency Moody's might need to be viewed with some scepticism. There is no doubt the performance of the Indian economy has sharply improved from the deep trough it hit last year. But the ability of the second largest global ratings agency to assess an upside and downside before events make everyone wise about India has been dismal for a long time, as the chart shows.
Earnings growth in the early-bird sample has been driven by banks and iron & steel companies.
India's harsh lockdown has left companies grappling with temporary closure, chaotic supply chains and depressed demand. Consequently, business plans have been modified.
India Inc's quarterly net profit reached a record high of Rs 1.64 trillion in the third quarter ended December 31, 2020, mainly due to gains from higher commodity prices and a big swing in banks' earnings. The combined net profit of 3,323 listed companies that have declared results so far was up 68.6 per cent year-on-year (YoY). In comparison, earnings were up six times (534 per cent) in the second quarter and 6.5 per cent in the corresponding period last year.
Sectors such as electronics, pharmaceuticals and automobiles can see supply disruptions in value chain, which may lead to a derailment of the domestic economic growth.
It has been a year since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) initiated prompt corrective action (PCA), an exercise that puts weak banks under central bank scrutiny, against the 94-year-old Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB). But recently, this low-profile Chennai-headquartered bank found itself attracting some unwonted publicity when 60 per cent of its shareholders voted against a proposal to re-appoint seven directors, including one of the promoters, K R Pradeep (who holds around 2 per cent), and the company's managing director & chief executive officer S Sundar.
RBI said the improvement in asset quality was driven by state-run lenders which saw a drop both in both GNPA and in the net NPA ratios.
'A time-wise, as well as price correction, so that the market can absorb the gains made over the past 17 months.'
