The Indian Hotels Company, the Tata Group firm which runs the Taj Group of Hotels in the country, is set to expand its offerings by getting into serviced apartments business and by widening the portfolio of its wildlife resorts.
Notwithstanding the risk involved, analysts are upbeat on micro-cap investing as India remains in a firm bull market. Moreover, these stocks are available at relatively cheaper valuations compared to large, mid and small caps, assuring alpha returns. With a market-capitalisation (market-cap) of up to Rs 10,000 crore, micro-cap stocks are outside the purview of Nifty 500 stocks, and are ranked from 501 to 750 in the market-cap ladder.
The BSE Midcap and the Small-cap Index have run up 25.3 per cent and 31.3 per cent respectively over the past year. Valuations are no longer cheap, notes Sanjay Kumar Singh.
Since you are betting only on a few stocks, the risks are high.
Catamaran, the family office of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, is targeting 15 per cent returns on its portfolio investments per annum as it shifts focus from early-stage investments to growth and late-stage bets. This would double the firm's assets under management (AUM) from the current $1 billion to $2 billion over the next five years. "For direct investments, we are focusing on growth-stage investments and very selectively on early stage," Deepak Padaki, president, Catamaran, told Business Standard. "(This is) primarily because the early-stage space in India, in the last three-four years, has completely changed. "There has been a huge influx of capital in the last two years. It has become a very crowded space for early-stage investment," he said.
Global private equity investor Advent International on Monday said it is acquiring a significant stake in Suven Pharmaceuticals from its promoters, the Jasti family. The PE major said this will be followed with an open offer to acquire 26 per cent more in the listed contract development and manufacturing organisation from public shareholders, and also merge the company with investee company Cohance Lifesciences, as per an official statement. Media reports on a Monday morning pegged the acquisition at Rs 6,300 crore, and that Advent had pipped rival Blackstone for the acquisition.
'Our Q1 was almost flat, and there was very negligible growth in Q2, but the deal pipeline and the order book have been fairly significant.'
When we are unwell, we consult a doctor, take a prescription, and then buy medicines from a chemist. In finance, too, it is best to keep investment advice and product purchase separate, suggests Bindisha Sarang.
'Sectors that had been left out till now will also start participating in the rally.'
Those transferred include special secretary of health and family welfare Udit Prakash Rai, a 2007 batch IAS officer of AGMUT cadre.
The share of non-resident Indians (NRIs) and overseas investors in Indian mutual funds has been declining over time, despite adding half-a-trillion rupees to holdings over the last five years. Mutual fund holdings for the segment went up from Rs 0.95 trillion as of December 2018 to Rs 1.54 trillion as of December 2022, shows Business Standard analysis of data from the industry body Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). Their share in overall mutual fund assets has fallen from 4.2 per cent to 3.9 per cent during the same period.
'If an investor wants to clone an ace investor's portfolio, s/he will be better off cloning the entire portfolio rather than cherry picking stocks selectively.'
Sharma was the president of the conference, the first since the Paris Agreement of COP21 that expected parties to make enhanced commitments towards mitigating climate change.
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.
Future Capital Holding disclosed its plans to enter asset management and retail broking. A credit card tie up with ICICI bank is also in the pipeline.
Nikunj Saraf, Vice President Choice Wealth, answers your queries.
International Decision Systems, asset finance portfolio management software and services provider, plans to triple staff at its development centre in Bangalore.
Despite gold prices hitting record highs, analysts aren't gung-ho about the outlook for gold financiers Muthoot Finance and Manappuram Finance. This, they said, was due to intense competition from banks, coupled with stagnating loan books and likely pressure on margins.
We all need an expert whose advice you can trust, who will not start pushing products at you and rather help you understand why your wealth is not growing as it should, says Erik Hon.
Corrective measures are already being taken by fund managers - overall allocation to the IT firm has been pruned by 120 basis points, from 4.43 per cent in March to 3.24 per cent in July
10 high dividend paying stocks across sectors that are expected to maintain or even increase their pay-outs in FY23 thanks to faster earnings growth in the last four quarters.
Social media giant Meta Platforms and Bharti Airtel on Monday announced a collaboration to jointly invest in telecom infrastructure to cater to the rising demand of high speed data and digital services in India. The announcement comes on the back of telecom operators' demand to share revenue with service providers to build networks. "Airtel and Meta will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS (communications platform as a service) based new-age digital solutions to support the emerging requirements of customers and enterprises in India," the statement said.
'But he was very quick and did a very stylish adab.' 'Of course, I didn't expect him to hug.'
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday posted a 49.2 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit to Rs 3,005.6 crore for the January-March quarter of 2022-23 on the back of new 4G customers and strong growth in average revenue per user (ARPU). The company had recorded a net profit of Rs 2,007.8 crore in the same period a year ago. Bharti Airtel's consolidated revenue from operations grew by 14.31 per cent to Rs 36,009 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 31,500.3 crore in the March 2022 quarter.
Companies don't have to be in the field to nudge people to return money they owe lenders.
The Street was following the Karnataka election closely as a test for the Modi-led BJP's prospects in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll. Investors, however, are likely to wait for the next round of state elections to judge whether the momentum is still with it.
In the face of tax blow, brokerages remain sanguine about the prospects of asset management companies (AMCs). A sharp correction in the shares of AMCs over the past three months factors in most of the negatives and turned valuations attractive, observe analysts. In its latest report, Kotak Institutional Equities (KIE) has upgraded HDFC AMC to 'add' (from 'reduce') and reprised 'add' and 'buy' ratings on the rest of the listed AMCs - Nippon, UTI, and Aditya Birla Sun Life.
Regulator Irdai on Friday directed SBI Life Insurance Company to takeover the policy liabilities of around two lakh policies along with assets of Sahara India Life Insurance Co Ltd (SILIC) with immediate effect. The decision was taken at the meeting of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) in view of deteriorating financial health of the SILIC. "The Authority has identified SBI Life Insurance Company Limited (SBI Life), which is one of the largest life insurers in the country with satisfactory financials, as the acquirer insurer of the life insurance business of SlLIC.
Friday will be a landmark day for domestic markets, with all the listed stocks entering the professed T+1 (trading plus one day) settlement cycle. About 200 stocks, which account for more than 80 per cent of India's market capitalisation, will be settled on a next-day basis, with effect from January 27. This will evidently complete the transition to the T+1 cycle that started in February 2022 with the bottom 500 stocks in terms of market value.
While the market regulator's recent note on portfolio management schemes has kicked up a storm, that is not the only pain point for businesses, says N Sundaresha Subramanian.
An NCD's credit rating will tell you whether risk possibility is high or low. Instruments rated below AA are regarded as high-risk.
Nikunj Saraf, Vice President Choice Wealth, answers your queries.
'This resilience should be viewed as reflecting the strength of the structural story.'
The benchmark Nifty50 managed to reclaim its 200-day moving average (DMA) on Wednesday but about half of top 500 stocks continue to languish below this key technical indicator. The 200-DMA - nearly a year's average of closing prices - is analysed by traders to understand the market sentiment. A fall below these levels indicates a weak trend.
After withdrawing record funds in 2021-22, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) continued their sell-off in the last fiscal too and pulled out Rs 37,631 crore from Indian equities amid aggressive rate hikes by central banks globally. The outflow trend is likely to reverse in the current financial year since India has the best growth potential in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24), VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist at Geojit Financial Services, said. Market analysts believe that FPI flows in the current financial year would be decided by a host of factors, such as the US Federal Reserve's policy stance, oil prices movement and development in the geopolitical situation.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
Exposure to debt funds and gold is essential even if current returns from these asset classes are low, suggests Sanjay Kumar Singh.
With the markets scaling new highs, as many as 43 stocks from the Nifty50 index and 27 of the 30 scrips that are part of the S&P BSE Sensex are trading above their respective 200-day moving average (DMA). The 200-DMA is seen as one of the most relevant trend indicators by investors and traders, who believe that stocks and indices trading above this level possess strength and are likely to rally in the short to medium term, while the ones trading below this level are viewed as bearish and expected to see a sell-off. Wipro, UPL, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Hindalco, Infosys, Cipla, and Adani Enterprises are the only stocks from the Nifty50 pack that are still below their respective 200-DMA, the exchange data suggests.
Over longer periods of three, five and 10 years, small-cap funds have rewarded their investors handsomely.