The focus of the company would be to develop its capability across segments of injectables, vaccines, biosimilars, inhalation and APIs to drive growth.
It is rare for Cabinet ministers to tick off state-owned companies publicly, yet that was what then petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan did for ONGC. Speaking at an event on June 29, Pradhan said he has asked India's premier exploration company to find fresh oil acreages fast. "Do it yourself through some joint venture (or) through a new business model. But the government cannot permit you to hold resources for an indefinite time." The reason for this stricture is India's rising dependence on imported oil and gas. Or, to put it another way, falling domestic production (see chart: "Crude truth"), especially from ONGC, which faces a simple problem.
Revenue from freight operations also increased by 14 per cent to Rs 9,903 crore in September.
Exports to China saw sustained double-digit growth for the fourth straight month in August, led by eightfold rise in iron and steel shipments.
Overall, the domestic FMCG market bounced back to levels of 98 in June compared with 75 in May and 101 in March before the nationwide lockdown was announced. The pre-Covid March index for foods was 103, and for non-foods, it was 99.
Household indebtedness is higher in the southern states as compared to the other parts of the country, a report said on Tuesday. Citing the All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) data from 2013-2019, domestic agency India Ratings said household indebtedness both in rural and urban areas was higher in southern states than rest of India. In 2019, Telangana with 67.2 per cent had the highest proportion of its rural households indebted and Nagaland with 6.6 per cent had the lowest proportion of its rural households indebted.
'Airlines will need a war chest to deal with post-COVID economics.'
Moody's Investors Service on Monday said it has assigned a first-time B3 corporate family rating (CFR) to ANI Technologies, which operates ride hailing service Ola. Moody's CFRs are opinions of a corporate family's ability to honour all of its financial obligations. It has also assigned a B3 rating to the company's proposed senior secured term loan.
Analysts say that Jio's substantial slowing down in net additions is possibly because the company has dramatically reduced its bundled 4G feature phone offering, which contributed an average 30-40 per cent of its net additions.
The finance ministry said the sharp inflows last fiscal were due to the government's policy initiatives and economic recovery.
HCL Technologies on Monday announced a special one-time bonus worth over Rs 700 crore for its employees, as the IT giant marked $10 billion (about Rs 72,800 crore) revenue milestone. The special bonus will be paid to employees in February 2021, amounting to nearly $90 million plus payroll taxes in some countries, the impact of which is excluded from FY21 EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) guidance provided by the company last month, HCL Tech said in a statement. HCL Technologies said it is "issuing a one-time special bonus to employees around the world" worth over Rs 700 crore in recognition of its recent milestone of crossing the $10 billion mark in revenue for 2020.
A British brokerage on Tuesday cut India's FY22 GDP growth estimate by a sharp 0.80 per cent to 9.2 per cent, saying the economic impact of the second wave of infections has been deeper than initially expected. Barclays chief India economist Rahul Bajoria also mentioned the slow pace of vaccinations in the country and the rolling lockdowns across many states for the estimate. It can be noted that last month has seen a slew of similar forecasts from analysts, even as the RBI maintained its estimate of a 10.5 per cent growth in real GDP.
Food delivery apps Zomato and Swiggy reported a nationwide outage on Wednesday. Both the platforms witnessed technical glitches and were unresponsive for almost an hour. Downdetector, a platform that collects status reports from a series of sources, recorded about 3,619 reports of outage against Zomato at 2:05 PM and about 771 reports of outage against Swiggy at around 2:21 PM. According to the sources, the outage was caused by Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud-services platform, which runs both platforms. Though Swiggy and Zomato are working now, some customers reported that the issue has not been solved completely and they are not able to place orders and there are payment related issues.
The Centre could better its fiscal deficit at 6.6 per cent of GDP in this financial year on stronger-than-expected revenue buoyancy, even if the budgeted disinvestment target is not met, Fitch Ratings has said. The international rating agency had last week kept the sovereign rating unchanged at 'BBB-' with a negative outlook, and said that the risks to India's medium-term growth outlook are narrowing with rapid economic recovery from the pandemic and easing financial sector pressures. In an email interview with PTI, Fitch Ratings Director (Asia-Pacific Sovereigns) Jeremy Zook said the two key positive triggers that could lead to a revision of the outlook to stable are implementation of a credible medium-term fiscal strategy to lower debt burden and higher medium-term investment and growth rates without the creation of macroeconomic imbalances, such as from successful structural reform implementation and a healthier financial sector.
After the RBI surprised the Centre with a record Rs 99,122 crore in surplus transfer for FY21, analysts said this will help the government tide over the revenue losses from lockdowns and extend more support to the pandemic hit industries and to the poor people. In fiscal 2020, the RBI had paid only Rs 57,128 crore in dividend to the government and the finance minister had budgeted only Rs 45,000 crore from the central bank. The higher payout followed the Bimal Jalan panel report that had set a new economic framework capital buffer for the central bank along with the contingency risk buffer at 5.5 per cent.
Shares of HCL Tech hit a fresh record high of Rs 1,118.55 on Friday, up 2 per cent on the BSE in intra-day trade, surpassing its previous high of Rs 1,101 touched on Thursday in intra-day deals.
Experts warn of over-interpreting the numbers and said their sustainability needed to be watched beyond November, says Indivjal Dhasmana.
India's economy has bounced back amazingly from the Covid-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown over the last one year, but it is not out of the woods yet, according to the World Bank, which in its latest report has predicted that the country's real GDP growth for fiscal year 21/22 could range from 7.5 to 12.5 per cent.
The sharp increase in commodity prices on account of the Russia-Ukraine war has put automakers in a fix. After the frequent price hikes in the current fiscal, manufacturers fear that any more price increases may further dent the already weak demand in certain segments. "We have taken several hikes and cannot immediately do it again. "We will have to closely watch the situation and act accordingly," said an official at an auto firm, declining to be identified. Even for companies like Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, which has had a strong volume run and a robust order book, passing on the entire costs has been tough.
Multiple triggers such as asset sales, pickup in energy cash flows, increased traction in omni-channel retail, and rise in ARPUs could further drive the stock.
The biggest headwind to the consumption story in FY23 is a sharp decline in government subsidies on food, fertiliser and fuel, and overall decline in revenue expenditure net of interest payments. This, analysts say, will adversely impact purchasing power of households at the lower end of the income pyramid, translating into lower spending on consumer goods and services.
American brokerage BofA Securities on Friday said the Indian economy continues to be "weak", pointing to activity indicators tracked by it. On the positive side, the brokerage said credit demand is bottoming out and the real lending rates adjusted for wholesale price inflation are falling. It can be noted that there has been a slew of reports lately about a stronger recovery being underway after the jolt caused by the pandemic.
Lockdowns imposed by the states in April and May to contain the second wave of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic has likely led to the economy contracting 12 per cent in the June quarter as against 23.9 per cent contraction in the same quarter in 2020, says a brokerage report. The economy had its worst contraction on record in FY21 at 7.3 per cent as the 2.5 months of unplanned lockdown announced by the centre with just a four-hour notice had crippled the economy in the first quarter with a massive 23.9 per cent contraction, which improved to -17.5 per cent in the second quarter.
While the ratio determines the extent to which the government is able to finance its expenditure, it is also an indicator of tax compliance. Developed countries have a higher contribution of tax to their GDP.
The local arm of the Japanese two-wheeler manufacturer accounts for every second scooter sold in India.
Fitch Ratings on Monday said it expects a moderately worse sector outlook for Indian banks for the next fiscal beginning April 1 based on muted expectations for new business and revenue generation, and deteriorating asset quality. Fitch believes that the disproportionate shock to India's informal economy and small businesses, coupled with high unemployment and declining private consumption, have yet to fully manifest on bank balance sheets. The rating agency said the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to pose challenges to Indian banks' improving financial performance once asset-quality risks manifest in the financial year ending March 2022.
The social impact of this could be worse as 300 million subscribers may face the annoyance of network shutdown and churn.
While the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur may have attracted among the highest donations by an individual (former student and IndiGo Airlines co-founder Rakesh Gangwal) at Rs 100 crore last week, IITs have largely seen such contributions rise over recent years, despite the Covid pandemic. According to Mahesh Panchagnula, dean, Alumni and Corporate Relations, IIT Madras, in the last five years, the premier institute has raised more than Rs 135 crore under the endowment category of education alone. Despite the pandemic, there has been an increasing trend in endowment funding received at IIT Madras, with an average increase of about 20 per cent year-on-year across the last five years.
Scanty rainfall, last year's lockdown, growing competition from Nepal and the disaster of the 2017 Gorkhaland agitation are steadily weakening exports and sales of Darjeeling tea.
Despite a 56 per cent fall in residential launches in the first half of the year compared to the second half of 2019, Anarock Property Consultants believes that consolidation in residential real estate is expected to gain ground, and that branded players may garner a market share of 75-80 per cent.
'We expect exports to touch Rs 1,000 crore by the end of the year.'
Combined profit before tax of 81 firms down 37.5% y-o-y, worst show in at least 3 years.
A study by second-hand car dealer CARS 24 showed 42 per cent of the consumer feel the need for a car to travel safely now. Those who used cabs to commute before the pandemic want to buy a car for the family and a two-wheeler for shorter runs.
After the second wave of the pandemic, general and health insurers have seen a fall in their outgo of Covid-related health claims. In the July-September quarter (Q2 of FY22), insurers settled a little over Rs 5,000 crore worth of Covid health claims. This is 35 per cent lower than the Rs 7,700 crore worth of claims they settled in Q1, sources said.
Old timers in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) still remember how in early 2000 its overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), was on the verge of closure. Though OVL was set up in 1965, the only discovery the company had made till then was in Vietnam offshore, with more investment needed to monetise it. In 2001, when OVL started looking for new blocks abroad, the company's previous acquisition was 13 years old.
Morgan Stanley removed banking stocks from its model portfolio when it slashed its weighting on the sector by 500 basis points. Several foreign brokerages, such as UBS, JP Morgan, and Credit Suisse, of late, have also become less optimistic about banking stocks.
M&M, Nestle India, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Bank, HCL Tech and Axis Bank were the other gainers. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, ITC, NPTC, PowerGrid, Titan and ONGC finished with losses. The NSE Nifty surged 121.75 points to 10,739.95.
Kataria, 49, an IIT-XLRI alumnus, was quick to implement a number of initiatives during the Covid-19 crisis including launching D2C initiatives such as mobile stores, WhatsApp messaging, video calling and home deliveries. Kataria was also swift to recognise that stay-at-home consumers were keen to buy informal rather than formal footwear, launching new collections quickly to take advantage of this trend, says Viveat Susan Pinto.
Investors need to get the timing of entry and exit right to make money in thematic and sector funds, suggests Sarbajeet K Sen.
'Despite the pandemic, we aspire to maintain the momentum of last year.'
