Shares of healthcare services major Max Healthcare Institute have gained over 23 per cent since the start of this month and the stock crossed the Rs 1 trillion mark on September 24. On September 25, it closed 989.85 apiece at the NSE. The gains were cornered on the back of a strong outlook for the sector and aggressive expansion plans for the chain led by acquisitions and organic growth.
Apart from the emotional value attached to buying gold, the yellow metal offers protection against inflation, interest rate spikes, currency and geopolitical risks, says Anamika Pareek.
From inflation, central bank shifts focus to rupee stability and capital flows.
Global private equity (PE) firms are successfully offloading large equity stakes in domestic companies in the open market, taking advantage of buoyant conditions. Strong domestic liquidity support and an upward trending market have underpinned over a dozen PE exits worth $2.5 billion, data compiled by Business Standard shows. The figures exclude PE exits during maiden share sales and shares sold by strategic investors, such as SoftBank and Ant Group in new-age companies.
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
The cryptocurrency exchanges in India have got a fresh lease of life following the bull run in Bitcoin, which briefly hit a new all-time high of more than $69,000. Siddharth Sogani, managing director of CREBACO, expects the price to cross $1,00,000 by the end of the year. This will see a sharp reversal in the Indian market, which has largely been dormant since the new tax regime was implemented in 2023.
Automobile retail sales in India rose to a record high in November, aided by the best ever monthly performance across passenger vehicle and two-wheeler segments, dealers' body FADA said on Wednesday. The overall retail sales stood at 28,54,242 units last month, 18 per cent higher over 24,09,535 units in November 2022. Passenger vehicle (PV) retail sales rose to 3,60,431 units as compared to 3,07,550 units in the year-ago period, registering a growth of 17 per cent.
Actively managed debt funds with the flexibility to go long on duration made a strong comeback on the returns chart in 2023, thanks to softening bond yields. The average one-year returns of floater, long-duration, gilt, and dynamic bond funds, which ranged between 2.3 per cent and 4.5 per cent at the end of 2022, now stand at over 7.2 per cent, with some schemes delivering over 8.5 per cent, according to data from Value Research. Debt fund returns are inversely related to yields of underlying investments, meaning a decline in yields is positive for funds.
'A mid-year review makes the end-of-year financial review manageable and less stressful.'
Global investment firm Blackstone on Wednesday sold its entire 23.5 per cent stake in Embassy Office Parks REIT for around Rs 7,100 crore, according to sources. Embassy Office Parks REIT is India's first Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) sponsored by Blackstone and Bengaluru-based realty firm Embassy group. Blackstone sold its stake in the entity at around Rs 316 per share through open market transactions and at this price, the deal is valued at about Rs 7,100 crore, the sources said.
'Given the inherent volatility, investors should take at least a three to five-year view.'
Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in India are expected to stay buoyant, seen over the last three-four years, despite a slowdown in the first seven months of the calendar year. "M&A is a lumpy business activity, and we may suddenly see large deals taking place during the next two quarters of the calendar year. "This would help maintain the streak of strong M&A activity.
Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Monday said despite the latest headwinds arising from the Jackson Hole summit leading to extreme volatility, our banking system and financial markets are strong enough to withstand such pressures. Taking the markets by surprise, US Fed chair Jerome Powell had told the annual Jackson Hole summit of central bankers and economists last week that he would have to keep raising federal fund rates to tame inflation, which remains the biggest challenge to the world's largest economy. He also warned of the pains that such monetary policy actions would create on growth and jobs.
Why did the company zero in on RBL Bank to understand the business of banking? While the M&M investors heaved a sigh of relief, one gentleman must have been all smiles after this, RBL Bank MD and CEO R Subramaniakumar, notes Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Adani group has exited the financial services business by selling its entire 90 per cent stake in Adani Capital and Adani Housing to private equity (PE) firm Bain Capital for Rs 1,440 crore. The total valuation of the Adani financial services business stands at Rs 1,600 crore. Gaurav Gupta, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Adani firms will hold the rest of the stake.
'India has formed tremendous resilience and still a strong growth.'
If indeed we want the board to manage the RBI, probably the government should take a close look at the US Federal Reserve system which has a two-part structure - a central authority in Washington, DC, and a decentralised network of 12 Federal Reserve Banks located throughout the country, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Despite markets turning volatile, share sale activity at India Inc has surged to its highest level in five months. So far in March, promoters, strategic investors and other large shareholders have been able to offload shares worth more than Rs 33,000 crore-the most since November-defying uncertain market conditions. Both the Sensex and the Nifty are on course to post their fourth straight monthly loss amid headwinds, such as interest rate tightening by the US Federal Reserve and the global banking crisis.
Major General S C N Jatar, who passed into the ages on Monday night, thwarted anti-national forces at the peak of the Assam agitation. Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) salutes this officer and gentleman.
After record fund raising, Reliance Industries now has a strong balance sheet with high liquidity that will support growth plans for its three hyper-growth engines, Jio, Retail and oil-to-chemicals, according to the firm's chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani. In the company's latest annual report released on Wednesday, he said the company sold minority stakes in Jio Platforms -- the unit that houses its telecom and digital business -- and retail arm for almost Rs 2 lakh crore and raised another Rs 53,124 crore through rights issue.
Both Jet Airways and Go First have met with a similar fate of landing up in insolvency, albeit for different reasons. Whether Go First will be able to avoid the sharp erosion in value like in the case of Jet, experts say, will depend on how quickly it is able to restart operations and retain its slots at airports. Go First, owned by the Wadia group, filed for voluntary corporate insolvency resolution on May 2 due to inadequate capacity utilisation that led to a cash crunch.
With regulatory uncertainties clouding the future of online pharmacies, deals in the space are showing signs of slowdown, as also fresh investment from private-equity (PE) firms and venture capitalists (VCs). The data from Venture Intelligence shows so far in 2023 (as of June 13) there has been one deal with PE-VC funding. In 2022 there were four, a sharp fall from the 12, totalling $1,520 million, the sector had attracted in 2021.
Rebalance your portfolio in case it has become overweight on equities vis-a-vis your strategic asset allocation.
'The ship has been stabilised.' 'For the last 6-7 quarters, profitability is stable around Rs 250-Rs 300 crore.'
Krishnamurthy Subramanian listed land, labour, law, and liquidity as the key areas of big reforms.
Last week, its global head of strategic sales, marketing and alliances Prasad Thrikutam resigned from the job marking the 11th senior management executive exit from Infosys since Murthy's return.
The government is expected to defer the mega initial public offering (IPO) of LIC to the next financial year as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has dampened fund managers' interest in the public issue, market experts said on Sunday. The government was looking to sell 5 per cent stake in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) this month, which could have fetched over Rs 60,000 crore to the exchequer. The IPO would have helped meet the curtailed divestment target of Rs 78,000 crore this fiscal.
Debt-ridden Reliance Capital ready to cede control in home finance - Blackstone, Carlyle, Brookfield, and Piramal group are in talks to buy a large stake in Reliance Home Finance.
American retail giant Walmart is not keen on opening direct-to-consumer physical stores in India, but will focus on growing its acquisitions - online marketplace Flipkart and payments major PhonePe, a top official said on Friday. It can be noted that the company acquired Flipkart and PhonePe in a $16 billion deal a few years back. "We've got an omnichannel strategy that includes both of those components.
Tata Steel delivered one of its best financial performances ever in the third quarter of the current financial year, and surpassed its deleveraging target of $1 billion. In an interview, Koushik Chatterjee, executive director and chief financial officer, Tata Steel, tells Ishita Ayan Dutt that the company will continue to focus on deleveraging but profitable and value-added growth will be equally important.
Take a call to stay put or opt our based on whether you think the company will be able to find a strategic investor, suggests Sanjay Kumar Singh.
In January, Visa's chief executive officer, Al Kelly, said during an earnings call that "there's been a burst of the balloon in valuations in the fintech world". Noting that the trend of lower valuations "is a helpful characteristic of the current environment", he added: "We will look for capabilities and management teams that will bring more value to Visa than we can bring ourselves." Data from KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H2'22 shows that global fintech investment - via mergers and acquisitions (M&As), private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms - at $164.1 billion in 2022, was down 31 per cent over the year before. Indian fintechs held up better during this timeframe, attracting $6 billion, or a fall of 24 per cent.
Exposure to debt funds and gold is essential even if current returns from these asset classes are low, suggests Sanjay Kumar Singh.
Consumption of gold is the highest among middle-income households - those with annual income between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 10 lakh - who account for an average of 56 per cent of gold sales over the last five years, according to a nationwide survey conducted by India Gold Policy Centre (IGPC) at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). "Per capita consumption is highest among the rich, but total volume still rests with the middle-income group. "With increasing income, there is an increasing propensity to consume gold, although the share of gold in the portfolio does not increase with the same proportion of income," the survey report says.
Share prices of Dewan Housing, Indiabulls Housing, and PNB Housing have declined 30-80% in the past one year
'If the Union Budget can provide incentives for animal spirits to come as well as induce demand stimulus and consumption, the Budget would have done a wonderful job.'
'Kindling the private sector's animal spirits is more important than focusing on how government can give jobs on its own.'
The company attributes the trend to global slowdown and liquidity factors Luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz, which registered a growth of 35 per cent last year, will have to be content with flat growth this year.
An official said the government is preparing the financial statements and getting the data room ready for the sales, suggesting that such aspects take time.
'Money that came into mutual funds near the previous peaks -- the second half of 2017 and 2018 -- has in most cases experienced unflattering returns.' 'A large proportion of redemptions could be such inflows exiting when the market recovered sharply from July 2020 onwards.'
