Megha Engineering had emerged as the second-biggest buyer of electoral bonds and donated the highest amount of about Rs 586 crore to the Bharatiya Janata Party, according to the data released by the Election Commission on March 21.
Unprecedented bribery charges, farewells, separation, failed union, monumental mergers and record-breaking IPOs, along with a healthy dose of online happenings in the form of spat and lessons in customer care, corporate India saw it all in 2024.
Why is the RBI harsh on Paytm Payments Bank? Why did it give Rana Kapoor of Yes Bank Ltd such a long rope?Often, it's a long investigation process, but the RBI doesn't discuss this openly since that can threaten financial sector stability, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
While a DFI will help banks derisk their loan portfolios, creation of a bad bank will clean up their balance sheets.
Adani Group on Wednesday said it will invest over Rs 12,400 crore in an array of projects including a data centre, clean energy project, and a cement plant in Telangana. The group signed four memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for the investments at the World Economic Forum in Davos in presence of Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani. The conglomerate's flagship firm Adani Enterprises will invest Rs 5,000 crore in setting up a 100 MW data centre that will use green energy while its renewable energy unit Adani Green Energy Ltd will spend an equivalent amount in setting up two pump storage projects.
Air India sale will give a boost to India's privatisation drive, the Economic Survey said on Monday, as it suggested redefining the public sector role in business enterprises to encourage private participation in all sectors. The government earlier this month handed over ownership rights in national carrier Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore. The amount includes the takeover of the debt burden of Rs 15,300 crore and another Rs 2,700 crore in cash.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India on Thursday said it has unearthed yet another IPO scam in the public issue of shares of Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd.
The 15 proposals were cleared following recommendations by Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
Relying on the private sector to undertake infrastructure investment may not be a realistic proposition.
According to the third batch of supplementary demands for grants tabled in the Lok Sabha, approval is being sought for gross additional expenditure of over Rs 1.58 lakh crore.
The push given to rooftop solar installation in the Interim Budget ties in with its high rate of adoption in Tier-II and -III cities of India. If original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the automobile industry, government, and the solar sector are to be believed, in cities of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Kerala, 45-50 per cent of electric-vehicle (EV) users are employing rooftop power to charge their vehicles. This is compared to the national average of 25 per cent, say industry sources.
'Initially, Gift City was just another real estate project, but all that changed with Modi moving to New Delhi,' notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
With an existing consumer base of 400 million across airports, electricity and gas distribution businesses, the Adani group is revving up its retail play. It is planning to use the 2.4 billion consumer interactions a year with group companies to push various products and services. The group has already launched the 'Adani One' super app that will eventually sell products across the spectrum, top executives said.
While the collapse of a large financial intermediary can wreak havoc on the system because of the interconnectivity, a large business conglomerate too can play spoilsport if the banks have too much exposure to the entity, explains Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
From steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, and a lesser-known Future Gaming and Hotel Services were among the prominent buyers of the now-scrapped electoral bonds for making political donations.
Why do we need a bad bank, owned by the banks themselves when there are at least 28 ARCs around, asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
UV Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd has made the highest bid of Rs 16,000 crore to buy Anil Ambani group's Reliance Communications and Reliance Telecom, which are in the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Last year it was the highest bidder for taking over Aircel's assets for an upfront payment of Rs 150 crore. Surajeet Das Gupta and Dev Chatterjee dig deeper to find out more about this little known company.
'This is happening regardless of the Budget.'
The Reserve Bank of India has opposed Finance Minister P Chidambaram's budget proposal to use part of the foreign exchange reserves of over $200 billion to provide "credit wrap," or credit guarantee insurance, for financing infrastructure projects.
Mining magnate Anil Agarwal's conglomerate on Friday announced a major business shake-up, with flagship Vedanta Ltd approving a spin-off of its metals, power, aluminium and oil and gas businesses into separate listed entities and an overhaul of lucrative zinc unit planned as part of value creation and reducing debt load. Vedanta will issue one share of the five demerged businesses for every share held in the company, the firm said in a statement. The entire exercise, which would require shareholder and lender approval as well as a nod from the stock exchanges and courts, is expected to be completed in 12-15 months, its president for finance Ajay Agarwal said.
Banks do extensive investigation before declaring an account fraud; they owe it to us as they deal with our money. Why would they try to fix an innocent borrower? asks Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'With NPA under control, we should be able to post better profits.'
The rally in the equity markets in the second half of 2023 has led to a sharp surge in the cutoff for stocks to qualify as largecaps and midcaps. On the latest list put out by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi), the smallest largecap stock now has a market capitalisation (m-cap) of Rs 67,000 crore, 35 per cent higher than in July 2023. In the case of midcaps, the cutoff has surged 26 per cent to Rs 22,000 crore.
Tamal Bandyopadhyay offers some unsolicited advice for a government wh,ich came to power, with brute majority and the nation's pragmatic chief money man.
Larsen & Toubro Ltd said on Tuesday the country's leading housing finance company Housing Development Finance Corporation and HDFC India Real Estate Fund will acquire a 25 per cent stake in L&T Urban Infrastructure Ltd.
Of the three major Budget announcements related to the banking sector, privatisation of PSBs is the most audacious, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The country's largest housing finance company HDFC Ltd will merge with the country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank, according to a regulatory filing. The scheme of amalgamation will be subject to various regulatory approvals, including from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), HDFC Bank said in the filing on Monday.
Moody's Investors Service on Friday warned that the rout in Adani Group shares could hurt the conglomerate's ability to raise capital, while its peer Fitch saw no immediate impact on its ratings. Adani Group's listed companies have lost over USD 100 billion in value in just over a week after short-seller Hindenburg Research's scathing report flagged concerns about the ports-to-energy conglomerate's debt levels and alleged stock manipulation, accounting fraud and the use of tax havens.
India Inc raised $2.78 billion from overseas markets in October this year, up 44 per cent from a year ago, according to the Reserve Bank data released on Friday.
White labeled ATMs are set up by private non-bank companies that own and operate their own brand of ATMs.
The company had a total debt of Rs 16,010 crore (Rs 160.1 billion).
Delays in implementing power projects, mainly due to fuel issues, could turn Rs 1 lakh crore of bank loans into NPAs if prompt action is not taken, according to a study by KPMG.
India is poised to be the fastest-growing major economy in the world and an engine of global growth despite global headwinds, says leading industrialist and Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla. The economic activity in India has witnessed a sharp recovery to pre-pandemic levels on the back of a rapid and widespread rollout of the vaccination programme, Birla said in the latest annual report of UltraTech Cement Ltd. "A strong digital ecosystem, fiscal and monetary policy and various government schemes helped small and medium enterprises and the worst affected sections of the population to survive while reviving demand and bringing the economy back on track," said Birla while addressing UltraTech's shareholders.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The sector faces many challenges and calls for prompt corrective action.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Rs 30,600 crore government guarantee for the bad bank has changed the body language of bankers for the better, observes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Uniparts India and PNC Infratech are the latest companies to file initial public offer papers.
Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani on Friday resigned as director of Reliance Power and Reliance Infrastructure, following markets regulator Sebi order restraining him from associating with any listed company. "Anil D Ambani, non-executive director, steps down from the board of Reliance Power in compliance of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) interim order," Reliance Power said in a BSE filing. In a separate filing to the stock exchange, Reliance Infrastructure said that Anil Ambani has stepped down from its board "in compliance of SEBI interim order".
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