The FPI holding in India's top 100 companies, which are part of the Nifty 100 index, declined to 24.23 per cent on average at the end of March this year, from a high of 27.5 per cent at the end of March 2021. This is the lowest FPI holdings in India's top listed companies in at least three years. A general sell-off by FPIs has weighed on stock prices and the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex is down 8.5 per cent, from its 52-week high made in October 2021. Most analysts expect FPI flows to remain weak in FY23 as well, given rising bond yields in the US and an expected earnings slowdown in India due to high inflation and commodity prices.
The government has merged the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) with the finance ministry to give it a better control over state-owned firms and facilitate its ambitious privatisation programme. Finance ministry will now have six departments while DPE's hereto parent ministry, the ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises will now be called the ministry of heavy industries. Previously, the disinvestment ministry - created under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government - was merged with the finance ministry and is now a department under it. Also, Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) was abolished and administration of foreign investments was given to the finance ministry (FinMin).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday launch two schemes of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that may go a long way in changing how the household sector invests, and complains if anything goes wrong with their savings. These schemes - retail direct and an integrated ombudsman - will be launched by the Prime Minister virtually, in the presence of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. With the introduction of retail direct, a common man can directly take a position in government securities (G-Sec), considered to be the safest asset class a sovereign can offer.
While the government has infused huge capital into PSBs, the same has largely been used to mitigate losses and has failed to contribute meaningfully to credit growth.
On the Sensex chart, IndusInd Bank was the top gainer, rallying over 11 per cent, followed by ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC, M&M and Axis Bank. On the other hand, Dr Reddy's, Tech Mahindra and TCS were among the laggards.
Notwithstanding the challenges posed by the pandemic, the deal street remained buoyant pushing the overall deal value to a three-year high of $90.4 billion during the first nine months of 2021, a 35.1 per cent increase in value over the same period last year, according to an industry report. During the third quarter ending September, total deals grew by a tepid 3.8 per cent, according to the leading provider of financial markets data and infrastructure globally Refinitiv, an LSEG Business. The report also noted that IPOs alone grabbed as much as $9.1 billion of the deal value during the year.
The SBI board has given the largest lender an "in-principle" approval to invest in the capital-starved Yes Bank. The central board of SBI discussed the matter at a meeting on Thursday, it informed the exchanges.
Traditional plans are the biggest area of concern for consumers.
The listing day gain-to-loss ratio for FY21 was 71 per cent, the highest since FY17, when it was 85 per cent.
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The LIC and some PSU general insurers are expected to maintain dominant position in the coming years even in the liberalised scenario, ICRA said in a research report.
Rogue lending under political influence was rife in the Congress-led regime and is not happening in the Modi regime, certainly not on that scale. But if PSBs cannot lend as indiscriminately as they did last time in the name of 'credit expansion', how well will these banks do, asks Debashis Basu.
Debt-ridden firm Reliance Capital on Monday objected to the proposed 33.12 per cent stake sale of Prime Focus Ltd (PFL) by Credit Suisse to PFL's promoter group at Rs 44.15 per share. Anil Ambani's Reliance Group company Reliance Capital in a statement termed the proposed transaction as a blatant abuse of the purported rights by Credit Suisse under certain lending agreements with the RCAP Group. However, Reliance Capital did not share the details of the "blatant abuse of the purported rights".
Budget has already bombed at the box office and passing it without a revisit will be a mockery of the exercise though any modification may be short lived and perfunctory, observes V Ranganathan.
The talk of governance reforms at public-sector banks seems to remain on paper, as a majority of them continue to be working with just a handful board members. Half of the board seat at these banks have been vacant. Ten of the 12 public-sector banks, even large ones like Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank and Union Bank of India - all except State Bank of India (SBI) and Bank of Baroda - don't even have a chairman. In 2014, while splitting the post of chairman & managing director (CMD), the government had decided to appoint non-executive chairmen at these banks. SBI, which has an executive chairman and four managing directors, was an exception.
Development officers and agents of LIC are promoting Money Plus claiming to offer astronomical returns
Had Finance Minister Sitharaman thought a little more about the middle class, disadvantaged sections, and the poor who are struggling, it would have been an inclusive Budget that would have made history, notes Ramesh Menon.
Congress's chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala also said all Indians should ask the government this Independence Day what it was doing to protect the country and push China back.
Hectic fundraising through initial public offerings (IPOs) is expected in October-November, with at least 30 companies are looking to collectively raise over Rs 45,000 crore through initial share-sales, merchant banking sources said. Of the total fundraising, a large chunk would be garnered by technology-driven companies. The successful IPO of food delivery company Zomato, which was overwhelmingly subscribed by over 38 times, encouraged new-age tech companies to come out with their primary share-sales.
The revised estimated expenditure for FY20 has been pegged at Rs 26.99 lakh crore and receipts at Rs 19.32 lakh crore, she said.
This is part of the first batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2020-21 moved by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Lok Sabha.
Niti Aayog will prepare the next list of central public sector companies for disinvestment in the next few weeks, its vice chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Thursday and expressed hope that the proposed asset reconstruction and management companies to address banks' bad loan woes will do a good job like the UTI. Days after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Union Budget for 2021-22 laying out various measures (including disinvestment proposals) to bolster the pandemic-hit economy, Kumar also emphasised that the Modi government has shown consistent commitment for the welfare of farmers and for the improvement of the agriculture sector. "Now the process has begun... We will complete preparation of the next list in the next few weeks, we have got the marching order," Kumar said about the list of public sector companies for the next round of stake sales.
Very gradual fiscal consolidation glide path with looser-than-expected fiscal policy; good quality spending mix and reasonable assumption on fiscal math; and focus on privatisation, asset monetisation and long-term funding for infrastructure investments, according to Morgan Stanley, are the three key themes from the Budget 2021.
Investor wealth zoomed over Rs 10.48 lakh crore in two days as the Budget-driven market euphoria continued to charge bulls on Tuesday.
The government has decided to spend big on infrastructure across a wide variety of sectors to give a greater impetus to the economy which is recovering from the impact of Covid-19, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday.
The government on Monday budgeted Rs 1.75 lakh crore from stake sale in public sector companies and financial institutions, including 2 PSU banks and one general insurance company, in the next fiscal year beginning April 1. The amount is lower than the record Rs 2.10 lakh crore which was budgeted to be raised from CPSE disinvestment in the current fiscal year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the government's CPSE stake sale programme, and the target has been lowered to Rs 32,000 crore in the Revised Estimates.
The country's largest life insurer has been inundated with applications from companies, including heavyweights such as Reliance, as the deepening credit crisis forces India Inc to look for new sources of funds. Many companies are issuing NCDs largely to meet their working capital requirements as well as long-term capital expenditure plans.
The Life Insurance Corporation of India, the country's largest insurer, is pulling out all stops to mop up Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) through Jeevan Aastha, a single-premium product which offers at least 9 per cent guaranteed returns, in an attempt to reverse the trend of falling sales.
Using buyback as a divestment tool is not new, the amount raised this year is phenomenally high.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday questioned Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in connection with its probe into allegations of disproportionate assets amassed by him during his tenure as Union minister.
At a time when financial institutions are in the process of cutting costs through retrenchment, the country's largest insurer, Life Insurance Corporation of India, has drawn up plans to hire over 10,000 employees and around 250,000 insurance agents across the country.
Similarly, the state-owned corporation has subscribed to NCDs worth around Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion) this year, with nearly Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion) flowing into these instruments over the last three months when the global credit crisis intensified.
The primary market is set for a bumper Rs 80,000-crore bonanza with 30 companies already filing IPO papers to raise Rs 55,000 crore, while around 10 more are lined up for this month itself, seeking to mop up another Rs 25,000 crore, say investment bankers. The market has been on a non-stop rally, hitting new records almost every week, on the back of an influx of investors -- a vast majority of them first-timers -- coupled with a flood of liquidity. Foreign funds alone had pumped in a record $35 billion into the market in FY21, while the trend has continued this fiscal as well. Domestic institutions led by LIC have also infused trillions of rupees, helping woo retail investors in troves -- the year saw over 20 million new investors coming to the market.
An accident insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh is also given to all individuals who open a bank account under the Jan-Dhan Yojana.
With the disruption caused by the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the 'fear of unknown' is looming over the government's privatisation drive. Although there is a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability on how things will unfold, the government is hopeful of completing the transactions listed in the Budget with a delay of one to two months, said a top government official. However, "there are many unknown factors now, and we do not know whether there could be a third wave. But we are trying to carry on with our work", the official said." Since there is a lot of uncertainty, the estimates will have to be revised as rating agencies are revising their outlook for growth.
The agreement came in after the Ruias agreed to clear most of the Rs 26,000-crore dues to the lenders on completion of the transaction.
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