US private equity firm I Squared Capital is dropping out of the race to buy India's second-largest state oil firm, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) owing to a complex deal structure and lack of financial backers for the transaction, sources said. I Squared Capital through its Indian arm, Think Gas was among the three suitors that had evinced interest in buying the government's near 53 per cent shareholding in BPCL. "The company has made a decision not to participate in the financial bidding," a source with direct knowledge of the development said.
The Union Budget 2011-2012 is likely to be more beneficial for the special and underdeveloped states, including J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Bihar, rating agency Fitch said on Wednesday.
India has pitched for a sovereign credit rating upgrade with Fitch Ratings, after announcing its budget last month.
The CreditWatch action follows Vedanta's announcement that it would acquire a controlling stake in India-based oil and gas company Cairn India Ltd.
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.
The agency had in May projected an economic growth between 7.7 and 8 per cent for this fiscal and Monday's revision comes within a week of rival Fitch Ratings, and Citigroup revising the same to 7.5 per cent from 7.7.
An overview of the 10 biggest banks of the world on the basis of their assets.
Online travel portals and airlines say the demand from companies is being led by essential services sectors like pharmaceutical, oil and gas, and power.
Rating agency Fitch Ratings has said mobile number portability (MNP) is unlikely to hit operators, considering the dominant pre-paid nature of the market and high churn rate, and opined that India will not behave too differently from rest of Asia on this matter.
Expecting oil prices to remain under pressure, Fitch Ratings said deregulation of diesel prices in October will help in lowering the under-recoveries (which is nothing but international petroleum prices minus the subsidised retail rates).
The Indian economy will suffer lasting damage from the coronavirus crisis and after an initial strong rebound in FY22 (fiscal year ending March 2022) growth will slow to around 6.5 per cent a year over FY23-FY26, Fitch Ratings said on Thursday. "A combination of supply-side scarring and demand-side constraints - such as the weak state of the financial sector - will keep the level of GDP well below its pre-pandemic path," it said in commentary on the Indian economy. Fitch said India's coronavirus-induced recession has been among the most severe in the world, amid a stringent lockdown and limited direct fiscal support.
The broader NSE Nifty too slipped by 9.50 points, or 0.09 per cent, to end at 10,118.25
A majority of fixed income investors expect the fiscal deficit to stay close to the government's target of 5.5 per cent or lower in the year to March 2011, according to a Fitch Ratings survey of money managers at asset management companies, life insurers, pension funds and banks.
Fitch Ratings has upgraded Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) rating to 'BBB', one notch above India's sovereign rating, as the company benefits from cash flow generation across diversified business segments and continuation of deleveraging. In a statement, Fitch said it has upgraded RIL's long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) to 'BBB', from 'BBB-', with a negative outlook. At the same time, the agency has affirmed RIL's long-term local-currency IDR at 'BBB+' with a stable outlook.
With a slew of new players entering the Indian small car market, segment leaders like Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai Motor India will face challenge to their domination.
India's budget could have been more ambitions on the fiscal front.
However, the budget lacked very specific measures detailing how this will be achieved," the statement said.
International rating agency Fitch Ratings has pegged India's economic growth at 8 per cent for this fiscal, up from an estimated 7.2 per cent in the 2009-10 period.
Fitch frowns at government pay hikes.
Fitch said the full implications of Patel's resignation will only become clearer once there is some indication of the RBI's policy approach under his replacement, Shaktikanta Das
India was already in the midst of a protracted economic slowdown before the virus hit due to a festering crisis among shadow lenders and declining consumer demand and private investment. Service sector activity in India is still effectively on hold.
S&P has maintained a stable outlook on the basis of their expectation that over the next two years the growth will remain strong and India will maintain its sound net external position and fiscal deficit will remain elevated but broadly in line with their forecast.
Flush with surplus capital and liquidity, European banks are increasingly looking for potential acquisition targets in India among other emerging economies.
Despite a significant improvement in asset quality, the country's banking industry might see its bad assets inching up in the months ahead, particularly in retail segment, global rating agency Fitch said.Rising bad loan assets had prompted many banks to sell their sticky assets to asset reconstruction companies, in order to transfer the risk and clean up their balance sheets.
The number of telecom subscribers in India will reach a staggering 250 million by end of 2007 as the competition in the segment intensifies with aggressive expansion plans of regional and global players, according to a report.
With their weak metrics and high bad loans, India's state-run banks have not been investor favourites
India's macroeconomic situation is improving fast and the country's GDP growth will turn positive in the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year, eminent economist Ashima Goyal said on Sunday. Goyal in an interview to PTI said the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and gradual unlocks announced by the government have helped in avoiding multiple COVID-19 peaks. The growth estimates by different agencies are being continuously revised, she said.
The retrenchments at the company promoted by Mumbai BJP chief Mangal Prabhat Lodha come at a time when the economic growth has dipped to a six-year low of 5 per cent, which has led many to fear if the spectre of job losses across sectors awaits next.
Global agency Fitch Ratings on Tuesday retained India's long-term foreign and local currency ratings at the speculative grade, saying that while the country's external account had improved, local public finances had deteriorated.
The rating agency revised the outlook for EXIM, SBI, Bank of Baroda, Bank of Baroda (New Zealand), Bank of India, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank while affirming their ratings. At the same time, Fitch has affirmed IDBI Bank Ltd's (IDBI) rating, while maintaining the outlook at negative.
Stating that India's economic stimulus was not adequate, Banerjee said, the measures did not increase consumption spending of lower income people as the government was not willing to put money in the hands of the low income population.
With the world's worst outbreak of COVID pandemic stalling a nascent economic recovery, the government has begun assessing the impact of the second wave of infections on different sectors and may look at providing support at an appropriate time to segments requiring fiscal help. Some of the economic indicators, including the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections, still provide confidence and incoming data will throw some more light on the state of the economy, sources said. Services sectors like hospitality, tourism and aviation which had just started recovering were hit hard by the second wave of COVID, the sources said, adding these segments might need some support on an urgent basis from the government.
The stimulus measures include extension of the 90-day moratorium on recognition of impaired loans to 180 days, in addition to several relaxations in bank lending limits, including allowing banks to fund interest on working capital loans.
Fitch Ratings has said fundamentals of the Indian textiles industry are changing and the sector seems to be on a comeback trail aided by government policies and buoyant exports in 2002-03.
The Reserve Bank of India has approved external commercial borrowing proposals aggregating $1.7 billion during the first quarter ended June 30, 2003, RBI executive director Usha Thorat said on Saturday.
Credit rating agency Fitch India has affirmed AAA(ind) rating, indicating lowest expectation of credit risk, of Reliance Industries Ltd, following the announcement of audited results for the year ended March 31, 2002.
