India's real estate industry staged a rebound from 2020's downturn, with housing sales seen rising by over 50 per cent. The performance, though short of pre-COVID levels, has property developers hoping for stronger gains in the New Year and the beginning of a long upcycle. A strong foundation has been laid this year for revival in the Indian real estate sector, which is projected to reach $1 trillion mark by 2030 from $200 billion in the pre-pandemic year.
Need to conserve profits to strengthen the capital base is driving the effort.
'Public sector banks are like an extended arm of the government.' 'They rush to rescue certain sectors or they rush to invest in certain sectors to prop up the economy which the private banks don't.'
Omkeshwar Singh, Head, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
'The entire government-owned banking system (excluding SBI) is now in the red.' 'But worse is to come,' warns T N Ninan.
Bad loans of PSBs are at Rs 20 trillion. Most of it is, I sense, due to corruption and behest lending. Nobody pays a price for this charade. Not the promoters, the bankers, RBI officials, finance ministry bureaucrats or politicians, points out Debashis Basu.
The evolving RBI-government relationship, a reversal in the interest rate cycle and return to profitability will dominate bankers' conversation this year, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
In the start-up world, hitting the $1-billion mark, which accords the "Unicorn" tag, is a milestone. Enterprises typically reach the milestone only by series C or series D, or three to four funding rounds later. Zeta achieved it at the first one. On May 25, the six-year-old banking tech firm raised $250 million from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, at a post-money valuation of $1.45 billion. "This is the first time we have raised institutional money," Zeta co-founder Bhavin Turakhia beamed on the conference call. This trajectory is uncommon in start-ups.
The challenge for politicians is that the continuous electoral cycle favours short-termism and the loan waiver type of policy, whereas prosperity requires hard decisions where commonly held perceptions must be disrupted and over-turned, says Dhiraj Nayyar.
Meanwhile, retail jewellery sales in India have declined by 50 per cent since gold price started its uptrend nearly two weeks. Buyers deferred their fresh purchase amid expectations of a correction in gold prices from the current high level.
Despite recent developments that have accelerated the impending extradition of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, who has been in custody in London's Wandsworth Prison for over two years, the last month has seen his uncle Mehul Choksi dominate the headlines instead with his circus-like exhibition in the Caribbean that has involved red herrings such as a "girlfriend", to whom his wife seemed to have no objection, and possibly concocted stories of being kidnapped and manhandled. Choksi was widely regarded as Modi's Svengali in Mumbai when he returned from Belgium to expand his business. He had fled to Antigua well before news around how Modi finagled thousands of crores from Punjab National Bank (PNB) and other institutions through a series of allegedly coordinated and fraudulent actions involving letters of undertaking, or LoUs.
Barbeque Nation IPO: The promoters hold 60.24 per cent stake, CX Partners owns 33.79 per cent and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's investment firm Alchemy Capital holds 2.05 per cent in the company.
He's betting big on small stores to help him reach 10 million households by FY21, report Abhineet Kumar and Raghavendra Kamath.
There was a massive 24% decline in India's gems and jewelry exports to $2,321 million for September 2018 as against $3,053.38 million in the same period last year.
The Modi government wants to have a smooth relationship with the DMK government.
To facilitate such restrictions on entities found to have 'wilfully' defaulted on bank loans, the Reserve Bank is exploring ways to share details of these defaulters with Sebi on a real time basis.
'When you forgive a farmer's loans there is this ideological economists lobby which says: 'That's socialism. And that's bad'.' 'But to forgive the loans of big people, so that they will be interested to invest further is capitalism and is good.'
'A total overall of the existing way of working by abolishing taxes and allowing citizens to help themselves without any government bottlenecks and impediments,' observes Rahul Mishra.
Property buyers fund the project cost and the entire debt and entire equity servicing, and yet, have no locus standi in the IBC process, points out Debashis Basu.
This make it the first domestic firm to sell such a long-tenure rupee debt instrument.
'There is no need to do anything, let your SIPs get deducted every month, and stick to your allocation between equity, fixed income and emergency funds and your risk covers.'
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
Kerala floods take a toll on small businesses, NBFCs brace for losses
Airline told to transfer non-core assets, subsidiaries to special purpose vehicle
The regulatory actions, undertaken by the RBI and the government, came hours after finance ministry sources confirmed that SBI was directed to bail out the troubled lender. For the next month, Yes Bank will led by the RBI-appointed administrator Prashant Kumar, an ex-chief financial officer of SBI.
'Now is the time for India to course correct and for the government also to course correct,' says businessman Mangesh Khatri.
'RBI was focusing on public sector banks perhaps thinking that private sector banks are managed efficiently while PSU banks are not.' 'Now, RBI has to focus on private sector banks too.'
PNB has rich experience in the integration of commercial banks.
RBI governor on the stress in public sector bank due to NPAs, and what is needed to be done to get the system back on track.
India is Asia's other bad debt headache.
While the government has not made the report public, sources said the panel had recommended a sharp cut in all taxes on the gold business, including import duty and goods and services tax which amounts to over 13%.
This is part of an 'aggressive and decisive set of action' to shore up the company.
'India is nowhere near the peak of the infection given its large population of 1.3 billion'
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, who faced a stinging attack from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for presiding over the "worst phase" of the Indian banking sector, on Thursday reminded her that two-third of his tenure as the head of the central bank was under the Bharatiya Janata Party government.
Another reason working in Air India's favour now is the government's plan to clean up part of the airline's burgeoning debt from its books - a major deterrent for investors when it attempted divestment the previous time.
'The financial sector's performance in the first two quarters was a revelation.' 'It clearly showed the clean-up had been done in the past one-and-a-half years and that capital brought in was significantly stronger.'
The banking sector's credibility is on thin ice. Unless the government takes strict steps, things could get worse.
'The government has to stop trying to fix things for lenders, projects, homeowners and developers and think instead about how to fix the market for houses,' says Mihir S Sharma.
'By not letting bankrupt banks fail, we have discouraged ordinary folk from taking precautions while choosing their bank or at least when they hear bad news about their bank,'says S Muralidharan, former MD, BNP Paribas.
Invest 5 to 10 per cent in a banking sector fund. Ensure that mutual fund's portfolio includes all three players -- private sector banks, public sector banks and NBFCs.
