Reliance Industries has confirmed that it had dropped plans to merge its subsidiary company, Reliance New Energy Limited (RNEL) into itself. RNEL is the company that will undertake the group’s new energy as well as its renewable energy business. As of now, RNEL is a who wholly-owned subsidiary of RIL and now it is likely to remain that way, without being absorbed into the parent. The whole idea was to keep the renewable franchise as a separate entity so that valuation becomes easier. It will now stay that way. For the week ended 21st April 2023, a total of 8 out of the top 10 most valuable com ..read more

Even as IT stocks have corrected sharply amidst heavy sell-off by the FPIs, there has been a sharp fall in the weight of the IT sector in the Nifty-50 index. From 17.7% weight in the Nifty in March 2022, the weight of the IT index has slipped to a 5-year low of 12.2% as of March 2023. Since the start of 2023, the combined market cap of the big-5 IT companies is down 8.2%. In the last 15 months, the combined market cap of the top-5 IT companies is down a full 28.3%. Banks and FMCG are the two sectors to see weightage gains. HCL Tech reported 10.8% higher net profits yoy at Rs3,983 crore for the ..read more

According to Citigroup, equities and other risk assets could take a hit as central banks withdraw $800 billion of stimulus. Central banks have infused trillions of dollars into the global economy to aid the post-COVID recovery. While the US Fed had started to cut its balance sheet size, it had propped up another $440 billion post the recent banking crisis. If these unwind rapidly, as is likely, it could create a shortage of liquidity in the system. That could typically hit the passive portfolio flows to emerging markets globally. As per the latest shareholding statement filed with the stock ex ..read more

WPI inflation for March 2023 fell to a 29-month low of 1.34% compared to 3.85% in February 2023. There was a fall across manufacturing inflation, fuel inflation and primary inflation with manufacturing inflation even dipping into the negative zone. While the WPI inflation has fallen more than 1,500 bps from its peak of May 2022, the CPI inflation is still to catch up. However, food inflation, excluding manufactured food products actually rose to 5.48%, showing the lag effect of a weak Kharif. A lot will depend on monsoons. India’s 4th largest pharmaceutical company by domestic sales, Mankind P ..read more

For the week ended 13th April, 7 of the top-10 most valued companies added Rs67,860 crore in market valuation. ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were the big gainers. In terms market cap accretion, ICICI Bank added Rs17,188 crore, HDFC Bank Rs15,065 crore, HDFC Ltd Rs10,558 crore, ITC Rs10,191 crore, Reliance Rs9,912 crore and SBI Rs4,641 crore. In terms of value losers, Infosys lost Rs13,898 crore and TCS gave up Rs11,654 crore, while HUL lost Rs6,955 crore. IT sector results were relatively tepid on the next year guidance front. For the fiscal year FY23, power consumption grew 9.5% yoy to 1,503.65 bi ..read more

Adani group has raised strong objections to the report in the Financial Times, London; which says that half of the FDI flows into Adani group were from connected offshore entities. Adani group has called the FT report mendacious and has called on FT to take down the article. As per the report, out of the $5.70 bn of FDI into Adani group since 2017, nearly 45% came from such connected offshore entities. Hindenburg Research had earlier had issued a scathing report on Adani group, after which market cap fell $120 billion. Government is scouting for merchant bankers for its proposed 25% stake sale ..read more

It has been a tough quarter for start-up funding. In fact, start-up funding in India fell by 75% yoy for the quarter ended March 2023. At $2.8 billion across 301 deals in March 2023 quarter, it was far below $11.9 billion across 816 deals in the year ago period. Start-up funding is also down 27% sequentially. The real fall was in late stage deals, which fell 79% to just $1.8 billion as venture capital gets edgy about near-to-market start-ups. Lenskart and PhonePe led the funding while no unicorns were created in the quarter. The CBI filed a charge sheet against Chanda Kochhar, former ICICI Ban ..read more

Reliance Industries Jio Infocomm raised $5 billion via foreign currency loans. This is the largest syndicated loan in India’s corporate history. RIL raised $3 billion from 55 banks while Reliance Jio Infocomm got $2 billion from 18 banks. Reliance will deploy the funds for capex while Jio Infocomm will invest in its pan-India 5G network rollout. Market experts contended that the response was much better than expected. The last major offshore borrowing by RIL was the $1.45 billion dual-currency financing completed in 2020. L&T rallied to Rs2,229 on Wednesday after the company announced mega ..read more

Adani Ports has completed the acquisition of Karaikal Port Private (KPPL) pursuant to NCLT approval. Adani Ports will pay an acquisition consideration of Rs1,485 crore under the CIRP process, which implies an EV/EBITDA multiple of 8x on FY23 EBITDA numbers. Adani Ports will additionally invest Rs850 crore to upgrade infrastructure and reduce logistics costs. KPPL has built-in cargo handling capacity of 21.5 million metric tonnes (MMT) and essentially handles cement, fertilisers, limestone, steel, and liquid crude cargo. Byju’s, India’s Edtech major, raised $700 million at a flat valuation of ..read more

GST collections for March 2023 came in at an impressive Rs160,122 crore. With that, FY23 GST collections have crossed Rs18 trillion. This is nearly 13% higher on MOM basis and also the second highest collection ever. For FY23, the average GST collections (gross) stood at Rs1.51 trillion. Out of the total GST inflows, CGST accounted for Rs29,546 crore, SGST Rs37,314 crore, IGST Rs82,907 crore and cess Rs10,355 crore. Nearly half of IGST was import duties. This is attributed to higher activity and also much better compliance. Defence exports are really picking with Rs15,920 crore of defence expo ..read more