Proceedings in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were disrupted as Opposition members raised slogans demanding a discussion and a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the fraud-allegation-triggered rout.
The insolvency process of debt-ridden Reliance Capital Ltd (RCL) on Tuesday hit a roadblock as the NCLT Mumbai has stayed the resolution process on the plea of Torrent Group. The stay order was issued by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) as the Ahmedabad-based Torrent Group challenged the revised bid from Hinduja Group, sources said. Torrent Group, which emerged as the highest bidder with an Rs 8,640 crore offer, had moved the NCLT-Mumbai against Hinduja Group's late revised bid, which it had submitted after the completion of the e-auction process on December 21.
Kotak Bank rose the most among Sensex scrips, spurting 2.92 per cent amid reports that LIC will up its stake in the private lender to 10 per cent. Gains in HCL Tech, TCS, Infosys, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finance and Titan helped Sensex close in the green. NSE Nifty edged higher by 27.50 points to end at 17,053.95.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
The Sena faction alleged corruption cases against BJP leaders are being suppressed.
Gautam Adani was the world's third and Asia's richest man a month back but a damning report by a US firm triggered a massive sell-off in shares of his apples-to-airport group, plunging his own wealth by $80 billion and the tycoon slipping to No.30 on the world billionaire index. Adani's sprawling conglomerate, which spans from sea ports to airports, edible oil and commodities, energy, cement and data centres, is under attack by US short-seller Hindenburg Research, which successfully deflated electric-vehicle maker Nikola Motors in 2020. Hindenburg, which held short positions in unidentified shares of Adani Group firms through its US-traded debt and offshore derivatives, on January 24 accused the conglomerate of "brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud" and using a number of offshore shell companies to inflate stock prices.
Industry players credit Sebi's first woman chairperson with putting special emphasis on cyber security, use of tech and data, areas where Sebi is trying to 'stay ahead of the curve'.
From the enactment of the capital control Act to the recognition of the BSE as a stock exchange and the infamous Harshad Mehta scam, here are the 18 biggest events for stock markets from 1947 to 1993.
Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran on Tuesday said India is not defending the rupee and the Reserve Bank of India is taking necessary steps to ensure that the movement of the rupee is gradual and in line with market trends. Nageswaran further said that the rupee is being managed in a manner that reflects the fundamentals of the economy. "India is not defending the rupee... I don't think Indian fundamentals are such that we need to defend the rupee. "The rupee can take care of itself," he said at an event in New Delhi.
The mutual fund (MF) industry has seen a fair number of new entrants in the last 10 years but none of them have proved to be much of a challenge for the larger players. The list of top 20 fund houses, which manage over 90 per cent of the industry's total assets, continues to be dominated by players who have been in the business for more than a decade. Bajaj Finserv MF may change that, say experts.
The last year has seen public sector undertakings (PSUs) outperforming the Nifty50, albeit by a small degree. But PSU valuations are still, on average, less than half of private sector peers at price-to-equity or PE 8.7x for the Nifty PSU Index versus 20.9x for the Nifty50. There are several reasons for lower valuation.
The Congress president also came down heavily on the BJP over the Adani issue.
'This is a good time to restructure your portfolio because the sectors and stocks that performed in the last bull market may not perform as much now.'
Listed housing finance companies (HFCs), as a group, posted a 3.7 per cent drop in second-quarter (Q2) profit year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 5,830 crore and 19 per cent sequentially on rise in interest expenses and uptick in provisions and write-offs. Operating income rose 13.7 per cent YoY to Rs 54,086 crore in Q2 of 2022-23 (FY23). Sequentially, income was up 62.3 per cent, from Rs 33,331 crore in the first quarter (Q1) of 2021-22 (FY22).
Tharoor said people have incurred losses after their money which was invested in LIC, SBI was put by the government "in its friend's account".
'Who knows, they might now want to rename the Eden Gardens and call it Modi Gardens!'
The Centre's push to sell Air India on priority has led to delays in other strategic divestment proposals, such as privatising United India Insurance, as well as ongoing transactions, such as Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), revealed multiple officials involved in the process. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) is yet to take new privatisation recommendations of the NITI Aayog to the core group of secretaries on disinvestment (CGD) headed by the Cabinet secretary, said one of the officials. The priority now is to ensure all approvals for Air India are in place since the government intends to hand over the national carrier as early as this month.
'If private capex has to kick in, there should at least be 2-3 years of visibility.'
A total of 49 companies raised Rs 81,615 crore in Samvat 2077, more than the preceding four years and almost double the amount raised in the previous year. Samvat 2078 appears even more promising with mega issues of Paytm and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India. However, Paytm's record could be short-lived as state-owned LIC is planning to launch a Rs 1-trillion IPO by March 2022.
Leading the Opposition attack over the Adani-Hindenburg issue in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday linked Gautam Adani's meteoric rise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's coming to power and said "magic" happened after 2014 that propelled the businessman from the 609th to the second spot on the global rich list.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday slammed the opposition alliance INDIA as a collection of arrogant dynasties who will take India back by two centuries as he exuded confidence that people will bless the "garib ka beta" with a record-breaking mandate in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In November, the fiscal deficit widened by Rs 2.2 trillion, the highest ever in any month this financial year.
Since April there have been no new NFOs because of the delay in the implementation of the new norms around pooling of funds.
Several Opposition leaders, including former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, on Wednesday attacked the government over a media report claiming that a key Adani group investor is also co-owner with the conglomerate in a defence firm.
Skills and democracy are the main drivers of sustainable growth, ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala said on Friday, adding that he is bullish on the Indian market. "If you examine history, democracy creates chaos and forces people to think and act. "Therefore, skills and democracy are the main drivers of sustainable growth...It is most needed..," Jhunjhunwala said at the 'India Today Conclave 2021'. On markets, he said he is inherently bullish and India is coming to a phase economically that it has never seen before.
Tata Sons has pocketed Rs 11,164 crore by tendering 24.81 million shares in the Rs 18,000-crore share repurchase programme by the group's flagship firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). State-owned insurer Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) tendered 1.17 million shares to take home Rs 528 crore. Small shareholders - those holding shares worth up to Rs 2 lakh - tendered 25.3 million shares in the buyback, 4.22 times the 6 million shares reserved for them in the buyback.
Fundraising activity in the upcoming financial year 2022-23 may even surpass FY22 when 52 Indian companies raised a record Rs 1.11 trillion via initial public offerings (IPOs). According to a note by PRIME Database, 54 companies (including LIC) plan to raise Rs 1.4 trillion and currently hold the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) approval. Another 43 companies, the note said, are looking to raise about Rs 81,000 crore but waiting for Sebi nod.
IDBI Bank had to sell its MF arm after being acquired by state-owned insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation since LIC already had an AMC.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
House economists at the nation's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) have urged the government to budget for nursing the pandemic-ravaged economy and not to focus too much on fiscal consolidation as there is a need for more stabilisation measures to sustain the fledgling recovery. And one of the best way to begin the new fiscal is to complete the share sale of LIC this fiscal. This can go a long way in repairing the overstretched balance sheet which in turn will bring down fiscal deficit to a much lower 6.3 per cent in FY23 as the public coffers will be left with a cash surplus of at least Rs 3 lakh crore to begin the new fiscal, SBI chief economist Soumya Kanti Ghosh said in a pre-Budget note on Wednesday.
With Sebi telling the Supreme Court that it was not investigating the Adani group since 2016, the Congress on Monday cited a Union minister's reply in the Lok Sabha to challenge the claim and asked whether Parliament was misled or the market regulator was "fast asleep" as investors were "duped".
While rising interest rates and tighter liquidity are giving negative signals for the financial sector, increasing economic activity could mean higher business volumes for lenders. Liquidity in the banking system has moved from Rs 8 trillion surplus into a deficit of Rs 33,000 crore over the 2022 calendar year. By the end of November, bank credit had grown 17.5 per cent YoY (year-on-year).
The government is set to initiate consultations with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to devise a new security clearance framework for screening potential bidders of public sector banks (PSBs) as it kick-starts the privatisation process, beginning with the strategic divestment of IDBI Bank. As the government is moving ahead with strategic divestment of IDBI Bank and is looking to privatise two PSBs, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) is looking to put in place an appropriate framework as the potential buyers will have to meet the RBI's fit and proper criteria, said an official. The process of bank privatisation would be different from the sale of any other public sector undertaking (PSU), and more restrictions and measures will have to be put in place, the official said.
The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine unions, on Tuesday gave a call for a two-day strike from March 15 to protest against the proposed privatisation of two state-owned lenders. In the Union Budget presented last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the privatisation of two Public Sector Banks (PSBs) as part of its disinvestment plan. The government has already privatised IDBI Bank by selling its majority stake in the lender to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the last four years.
Fitch Ratings on Monday said the plan to privatise two state-owned banks in the current financial year ending March 2022 could face delays amid renewed challenges for the Indian banking sector due to the second wave of Covid-19. The government in the Budget announced plans to privatise two public-sector banks. NITI Aayog has been entrusted with the task of selecting the banks and one general insurance company for the privatisation.
Low home loan rates by banks could put large players in an advantageous position over smaller non-bank players, believe analysts.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the Russia-Ukraine crisis and the ensuing jump in global crude prices are a challenge to financial stability in India. The two issues were discussed at the meeting of Financial Stability Development Council (FSDC), which comprises all the financial sector regulators, Sitharaman told reporters in Mumbai. "It is difficult to say how it (crude prices) will go.
Strong performance of past IPOs spurred investors' interest, with 87 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) garnering Rs 1,460 crore through initial share-sales in the first nine months of the year. This was way higher than 56 companies that had raised Rs 783 crore through initial public offering (IPO) in the entire 2021, the industry data showed. Further, the remaining part of the year 2022 can see more mature companies accessing the platform.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday said he does not see a 'middle path' to end the logjam in Parliament as the Opposition's demand for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Adani issue was 'non-negotiable' and the question of an apology over Rahul Gandhi's remarks in the United Kingdom does not arise.
