Tata Group-owned Air India shaved off its losses by 60 per cent to Rs 4,444.10 crore in FY24 over the previous year, according to the Tata Sons annual report for 2023-24. The airline had reported a loss of Rs 11,387.96 crore in FY23, the annual report said.
The post-Covid pandemic boom in corporate revenues appeared to have faded away in 2023-24. Yet, companies have reported a sharp recovery in their profits in FY24, driven by high margins. Their combined net sales, including gross interest income for lenders, rose by a modest 4.8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in FY24.
'India's top companies currently lack the organisational wherewithal to hire and train 2 million interns annually, given their current scale of operations and existing employee base.'
Kotak Mahindra Bank's net interest margin is likely to swell after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lifted its restrictions on the private lender that barred it from issuing fresh credit cards and onboarding new customers through digital mode, brokerages said on Thursday. The bank's net interest margin (NIM) has seen a decline of over 35 basis points (bps) since the restrictions were imposed by the regulator in April 2024.
Russia's state-owned oil firm Rosneft has agreed to supply up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to Indian upstream oil and gas major Reliance Industries (RIL) in the largest-ever energy deal between the two countries, Reuters reported on Thursday. The 10-year agreement amounts to 0.5 per cent of global oil supply and is valued at roughly $13 billion per year at current prices, it said.
With over 10 deals announced in 2024, the cement sector logged the highest number of pacts, including acquisitions and fresh financial investments, in a single calendar year since 2014, with the combined value of investments over $3.5 billion. During the year so far, 11 deals have been announced, according to Bloomberg data.
The retirement fund body EPFO is likely to announce the rate of interest on employees' provident fund (EPF) deposits for 2022-23 at its two-day meeting beginning Monday. EPFO had lowered the interest on EPF for 2021-22 to an over four-decade low of 8.1 per cent for its about five crore subscribers, from 8.5 per cent in 2020-21 in March 2022. This was the lowest since 1977-78, when the EPF interest rate stood at 8 per cent.
iPhone maker Apple has set an all-time revenue record in India and observed a double-digit growth in iPad sales in the country in the September 2024 quarter, senior officials of the company said on Friday. The company reported an over 6 per cent growth in total net sales to $94.93 billion during the reported period from $89.49 billion a year ago.
Fuelled by the $57.8-billion merger of HDFC twins (HDFC Ltd and HDFC Bank), M&A (merger and acquisition) transactions in India touched a record high of $124.2 billion in the first half of 2022-23. Bankers said with several transactions, including the government's stake sale in IDBI Bank and Hindustan Zinc in the pipeline, the ongoing financial year will end up as the best year for M&A activity in the country. Apart from the HDFC transaction, the $6.5-billion acquisition of Holcim stake by the Adani family and L&T's $3.2-billion acquisition of Mindtree added to the record transactions in the first half of FY23.
Bad loans in the peer-to-peer (P2P) lending industry more than doubled in financial year 2024 (FY24) to Rs 1,163 crore from Rs 472.1 crore in FY23, said a financial services company on Monday. Non-performing assets (NPAs), as such loans are officially called, were a modest Rs 14.7 crore at the end of FY19 when P2P lending was in its nascent stage, according to Capitalmind Financial Services that accessed data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through a right to information application.
Fitch Ratings on Tuesday retained India's economic growth forecast at 7 per cent for the current fiscal, but cut projections for the next two financial years saying the country is not impervious to global developments. In its December edition of the Global Economic Outlook, Fitch projected India's GDP to grow at 7 per cent in the current fiscal, at a slower rate of 6.2 per cent in 2023-24 and at 6.9 per cent in 2024-25. In September, Fitch projected 7 per cent growth for the current fiscal, followed by 6.7 per cent in 2023-24 and 7.1 per cent growth in 2024-25.
All the four listed private life insurance companies recorded a drop in value of new business (VNB) margin in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) as compared to FY23. This is because of a higher share of unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) in the product mix. VNB is a measure of the economic value of profits expected to emerge from a new business.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will review the performance of regional rural banks (RRBs) after the Budget session of Parliament, according to two people familiar with the matter. The finance minister will review the performance of RRBs after August 13. The review will include discussions on enhancing the digital capabilities of RRBs, said a senior government official.
Mortgage finance remains a structural growth opportunity in India with a policy focus on affordable housing, housing shortages, low mortgage penetration, and rising incomes as drivers. Affordable Housing Finance Companies (AHFCs) serve the mass market, low-income segments, which is the least-serviced category, and to operate in this segment, the mortgage provider needs good assessment skills. AHFCs and HFCs have also been increasing exposure in other mortgage segments (loan against property, developer loans among others).
India's healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors raised Rs 14,811 crore through initial public offerings (IPOs) in 2024, the largest since 2019, driven by strong domestic demand amid expanding global opportunities. According to data, key contributors to the record fundraising included Sai Life Sciences (Rs 3,043 crore), IKS Health (Rs 2,498 crore), and Sagility India (Rs 2,107 crore).
Honda Cars India (HCIL) net profit dropped by 52.8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to Rs 661.4 crore in 2023-24 (FY24), primarily due to deferred tax of Rs 359.8 crore, according to the annual results submitted to the Registrar of Companies (RoC) and reviewed by Business Standard. In FY24, the company's production increased by 16 per cent Y-o-Y to 134,807 units.
The production linked incentive scheme (PLI) for automobile and auto components has so far attracted a proposed investment of Rs 67,690 crore, said Economic Survey 2023-24 tabled in Parliament on Monday. A capital of Rs 14,043 crore has been invested till end-March 2024, it stated. Applicants have proposed employment generation of 1.48 lakh, against which 28,884 of jobs have been generated till March 31, 2024, the Economic Surevy 2023-24 stated.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday said it is expecting some slowdown in the Indian economy next fiscal year and projected the growth to 6.1 per cent from 6.8 per cent during the current fiscal ending March 31. The IMF on Tuesday released the January update of its World Economic Outlook, according to which the global growth is projected to fall from an estimated 3.4 per cent in 2022 to 2.9 per cent in 2023, then rise to 3.1 per cent in 2024. "Our growth projections actually for India are unchanged from our October Outlook.
'We are not incentivising the old tax scheme. These taxpayers will also shift to the new regime after comparison.'
Capital markets are becoming more prominent in India's growth story, with an expanding share in capital formation and investment landscape on the back of technology, innovation and digitisation, according to the Economic Survey 2023-24 tabled in Parliament on Monday. Further, Indian markets are resilient to global geo-political and economic shocks, it added. "Despite heightened geo-political risks, rising interest rates and volatile commodity prices, Indian capital markets have been one of the best performing among emerging markets in FY24," the Economic Survey said.
Growth in corporate profits needs to be commensurate with wages to boost the economy, Economic Survey 2024-25 said, noting that sharp disparities between the two pose risk to the economy by curbing demand. The document tabled in Parliament on Friday noted that while the labour share of GVA (gross value added) shows a slight uptick, the disproportionate rise in corporate profitsredominantly among large firmsaises concerns about income inequality.
The MF investor count, which stood at around 38 million in April 2023, has surged by 19 per cent in the past year.
The central government's fiscal deficit touched 67.8 per cent of the full-year target at the end of January due to higher expenses and lower revenue realisations, according to official data released on Tuesday. In actual terms, the fiscal deficit or gap between the expenditure and revenue collection during April-January period stood at Rs 11.9 lakh crore, as per the data from the Controller General of Accounts (CGA). The fiscal deficit in the comparable period of 2021-22 was 58.9 per cent of that year's Revised Estimate (RE) in the Budget.
Drone maker Garuda Aerospace have renewed their brand ambassador contract with M S Dhoni after he tops up investment in the company.
The network cost per tower of Reliance Jio is lower than its rival Bharti Airtel even as the gap between them is narrowing due to the latter cutting costs at a faster pace, analysts said. While the energy cost per tower for both telcos is reducing, Airtel has managed to reduce costs at a faster pace, brokerage firm IIFL Securities said in a research note. "Jio used to enjoy 35 per cent lower network cost per tower, including the right of use (RoU) depreciation and lease finance cost, versus Bharti four years back. This gap has now (FY24) narrowed to 7 per cent," it said.
State Bank of India (SBI), in a report on Friday, claimed a significant decline in the headline poverty ratio in rural areas on account of enhanced physical infrastructure, higher consumption growth in the bottom fractile and direct benefit transfers (DBTs).
GAIL India's second quarter (Q2FY25) performance met expectations.
HDFC Bank on Wednesday reported a 2.3 per cent year-on-year rise in its consolidated net profit to Rs 17,657 crore for the October-December quarter, restricted by slower loan growth. On a standalone basis, the largest private sector lender's net profit came at Rs 16,735.50 crore for the period, up from Rs 16,372.54 crore in the year-ago period, but marginally down from the preceding quarter's Rs 16,820.97 crore.
The government on Tuesday announced that it will undertake a comprehensive review of the Income Tax Act to make it easy to read. Presenting the Union Budget for 2024-25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said the government will come out with SoP (standard operating procedure) for TDS defaults and simplify and rationalise compounding of such offences.
'It has also outlived its initial purpose of reducing physical gold imports.'
Coal India (CIL) produced 89 million tonnes (MT) in March-24, up 6 per cent year on year (Y-o-Y) and offtake was 69 MT, up 7 per cent Y-o-Y. FY24 production was 774 MT, up 10 per cent Y-o-Y. Offtake was 754 MT, up 9 per cent Y-o-Y. CIL targets production of 838 MT in FY25, up 8 per cent Y-o-Y over FY24.
India's gold and silver imports from its free trade agreement (FTA) partner UAE have skyrocketed 210 per cent to $10.7 billion in 2023-24 and there is a need to potentially revise the concessional customs duty rates under the pact to mitigate the arbitrage driving this surge, a report said on Monday. Economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said this sharp rise in gold and silver imports is primarily driven by import duty concessions granted by India to the UAE under the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
A reading of the reports suggests that there is no standard practice for reporting political contributions and it is left to the company's discretion to report them as they find fit.
India recorded a current account surplus of $5.7 billion or 0.6 per cent of GDP in the March quarter, the Reserve Bank of India said on Monday. This is the first time in ten quarters that the crucial metric of the country's external strength has turned into surplus mode. In the year-ago period, the current account deficit stood at $1.3 billion or 0.2 per cent of GDP, and the same was $8.7 billion or 1 per cent of GDP in the preceding quarter ending December 2023.
Goldman Sachs report said, "India has a fifth of the world's population, but only a 30th of its energy".
The Reserve Bank on Friday retained its inflation projection for current fiscal year at 6.7 per cent amid global geopolitical developments triggered by Russia-Ukraine war. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the impact of inflation globally is weighing heavily on the domestic market. For September quarter of 2022-23, RBI projected retail inflation at 7.1 per cent.
Long-term macro trends indicate growth in demand for air travel. Trends from the ticketing website MakeMyTrip indicate a likely annual growth of between 11-17 per cent in Indian air travel demand over FY24-30. Through that period, InterGlobe Aviation or IndiGo may continue to make gains in market share in both domestic and international travel, aided by large fleet additions. IndiGo is the largest global customer of Airbus by far with 950 aircraft orders outstanding.
As the total number of bank frauds increased from 6,800 in FY19 to more than 13,500 in FY23, the share of private banks in the occurrence went from 34 per cent to 66 per cent.
The country's economy will start witnessing a growth of 6.5 to 7 per cent from fiscal 2023 onwards, helped by various reforms undertaken by the government so far and also as COVID-19 vaccination drive progresses, Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian said. He said the second wave of COVID-19 is unlikely to have a very significant on the economy. The country's economy contracted by 7.3 per cent in fiscal 2020-21. "Together with the reforms and focus on vaccination, I expect growth to start hitting close 6.5 to 7 per cent from FY23 onwards and accelerate from there on," Subramanian said at a virtual event organised by Dun & Bradstreet.
Several leading scientists, academicians, and agriculturalists have called for raising government support for research and development to make Indian agriculture future-ready.
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