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Domestic stock market came under selling pressure and ended the week in the red after investor sentiments were dampened due to rising COVID-19 cases in various countries. For the week, the Sensex tumbled 2.43 % to 59,845.29 and the Nifty 50 index tanked 2.53% to settle at 17,806.80.
In broader markets, the BSE Midcap index nosedived 5.10% to 24,426.79 and the BSE Smallcap index plummeted 7.67% to 27,252.68.
Top losers among Nifty sectoral indices PSU Bank [-10.28%], Media [-8.99%], Realty [-6.81%], Metal [-6.45%] and Energy [-5.41%]. Top gainer was Pharma [1.17%].
During the week, FIIs were net sellers for Rs 979.5 crore in cash segment, while DIIs were net buyers for Rs 8,545.1 crore.
India VIX, a gauge for measuring the market volatility, jumped 14.85% during the week.
Indian rupee depreciated by 10 paise to 82.86 against the US dollar on Friday.
Company News
Reliance Industries (RIL): The company’s retail arm, Reliance Retail, has inked a definitive agreement to acquire 100% stake in METRO Cash & Carry India for Rs 2,850 crore. This acquisition will add multi-category large format stores to Reliance Retail’s store footprint across India and further strengthen its new commerce business, the company said in a release.
RIL’s subsidiary, Reliance Strategic Business Ventures (RSBVL), bought a 23.3% stake in Exyn Technologies (Exyn) for a total consideration of $25 million. With this deal, the investment and partnership by RSBVL will have synergies with Reliance’s investments and strategic initiatives in drone, industrial safety and security and robotics areas, while accelerating Exyn’s product and technology development across multiple application areas and commercialisation, the company said.
Reliance Jio: Indian Oil Corporation has selected Reliance Jio’s managed network services to connect about 20% of its petrol pump network. Jio will connect 7,200 IOC retail outlets with SD-WAN managed service solution, zero-touch provisioning and 24×7 real-time monitoring for a period of 5 years.
In other news, Reliance Projects and Property Management Services, a subsidiary of Jio, has deposited Rs 3,720 crore in an SBI escrow account to acquire mobile tower and fibre assets of Reliance Infratel. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) gave approval to Jio for the acquisition of Reliance Infratel (RITL) in November.
Vedanta: The company said that it has been declared as the ‘preferred winner’ for the block I of Bicholim mineral block in Goa. The Bicholim Mineral Block has resources of 84.92 million ton, according to its regulatory filing. The granting of mining lease by the Government of Goa is subject to making necessary payments, completion of other terms and conditions of the tender document, obtaining necessary approvals from various government departments and execution of necessary agreements/deeds in the matter.
Maruti Suzuki India (MSI): The country’s largest car maker has signed an agreement with Kamarajar Port, Ennore, to export about 20,000 cars annually to global markets. Kamarajar Port will be used for exports to Africa, Middle East, Latin America, ASEAN, Oceania and SAARC regions by Maruti Suzuki. The agreement is for five years, starting December 2022. Other ports used by Maruti Suzuki for export are Mumbai, Mundra and Pipavav.
Tata Communications: The company will acquire a 100% stake in US-based Switch Enterprises for $58.8 million (approx. Rs 486.3 crore). Switch provides services for live production and video transmission. The deal is expected to be to be completed in the next 4-6 months. The acquisition will provide direct upsell opportunity for Tata Communications’ offerings, which will drive incremental expansion of Tata Communications’ video connect business as well as expand their leading presence in the media ecosystems in Europe and North America.
NTPC: The company said it has signed an agreement with GE Power India Limited to reduce carbon emission from its coal-fired units. Under the agreement, both the companies aim at partnering on research, development and engineering of technologies that will enable NTPC to reduce the amount of coal fired at units and gradually replace it by co-firing of carboneous and non-carboneous elements. Carboneous elements include methanol, carbon-neutral fuel, agri-waste, biomass, while non-carboneous elements are like ammonia.
Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL): The company said that its board of directors had approved the financial plan and capital expenditure for laying the piped gas network, and building and operating of eight city gas distribution (CGD) projects for an estimated investment of Rs 35,355 crore. According to its regulatory filing, BPCL is authorised to undertake the projects “under PNGRB (Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board) CGD Bid Round 11 and 11A with an estimated investment of Rs 35,355 crore in a phased manner.
GAIL India: The PSU and Japanese transport company, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, have signed a pact for a newbuilding LNG carrier and the joint ownership of the existing LNG carrier. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines and GAIL have reached an agreement to share the vessel by transferring a portion of company’s wholly-owned subsidiary’s shares to GAIL.
Separately, GAIL has raised Rs 1,575 crore via issuance of 15,750, 7.34% non-convertible debentures (Series-I) of Rs 10 lakh on a private placement basis.
JK Cements: The company will acquire Acro Paints for Rs 152 crore via its subsidiary JK Paints. JK Paints will acquire 60% equity shares of Acro Paints and remaining 40% shall be acquired over a period of 12 months, as per the agreement. The deal provides JK Cements an entry into the growing vertical of construction chemicals.
Delhivery: The logistics company has acquired 100% shares in Pune-based supply chain software firm Algorhythm Tech for Rs 14.9 crore. The acquisition will be funded from its IPO proceeds and will be completed by January 31, 2023. Delhivery said Algorhythm’s software tools are relevant both as a value added service and to drive cost optimization in service delivery.
IRCTC: The PSU has exercised the Oversubscription Option to sell an additional two crore shares amounting to 2.5% of the total issued and paid-up equity share capital of the company for the bid received on December15 and 16, according to its exchange filing. The company sold two crore equity shares of face value Rs 2, representing 2.5% of equity to retail and non-retail investors, on December 14. Shares of the company fell 0.4% on Tuesday.
The Government of India is proposing to offer up to 40 lakh equity shares of IRCTC to the eligible employees at a price of Rs 680 per equity share. The offer for sale for employees will remain open from December 23 to December 26.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T): The company has signed an agreement to divest its 51% stake in L&T Infrastructure Development Projects (L&T IDPL) to a portfolio company of Infrastructure Yield Plus II, an infrastructure fund managed by Edelweiss Alternatives. With this, L&T will divest its entire stake in the concession subsidiary, L&T IDPL. This is in line with L&T’s strategy of reducing its exposure to the non-core asset heavy developmental projects portfolio. L&T IDPL is a joint venture between Larsen & Toubro and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) holding 51% and 49% shares respectively.
UPL: The company announced the completion of investment of Rs 2,474 crore ($300 million) for 13.33% stake in Advanta Enterprises by KKR. This is a part of the larger corporate realignment exercise announced in October 2022 to create four distinct business platforms — Global Crop Protection (ex-India), India Agtech, Global Seeds, and Manufacturing & Specialty Chemicals to unleash growth potential of each of these platforms and unlock value for UPL shareholders by facilitating ‘fair value recognition’ of each platform.
KEC International: The company has secured new orders of Rs. 1,313 crore across its various businesses such as Transmission & Distribution (T&D) and Solar. The T&D business has secured orders for T&D projects in India, East Asia Pacific and SAARC: 220 kV GIS Substation for a refinery project in India 500 kV Transmission line in Thailand 132 kV Transmission line and associated substations in Nepal. The solar business has secured a large order for a 500 MW Solar PV project in India.
Bandhan Bank: The private sector lender has received binding bid of Rs 801 crore from asset reconstruction company, on security receipt consideration basis, for its written-off portfolio with outstanding of Rs 8,897 crore. The bank said it would go for bidding as per Swiss challenge method. The bank had earlier received approval of the board members for transfer of group loan and SBAL written-off portfolio to asset reconstruction company.
Adani Enterprises: Adani Solar, the photovoltaic manufacturing and research arm of the Adani Group, has launched large sized monocrystalline silicon ingot, at its Mundra facility. The monocrystalline ingots will drive indigenization to produce renewable electricity from silicon based PV modules with efficiencies ranging from 21% to 24%.
Bharti Airtel: The company has entered into an agreement for the acquisition of 8% stake in a technology startup, Lemnisk (Immensitas Private Limited) under Airtel’s Start-Up Accelerator Program. Lemnisk is a Bengaluru-based start-up that offers real-time marketing automation and secure customer data platform.
Both the companies will work together to build the world’s largest CDP platform across Airtel’s digital businesses including ad-tech (Airtel Ads), digital entertainment (Wynk Music and Airtel Xstream) and digital marketplace (Airtel Thanks App). In future, Airtel plans to offer this service to its enterprise customers through Airtel IQ, which is the network-integrated Cloud Platform as a Service (CPaaS).
Mindspace Business Parks REIT: In a regulatory filing, the company said that it has completed an issuance of commercial papers of Rs 100 crore for a maturity of three months at an interest rate of 7.2 per annum. The funds will be utilised towards the working capital requirements of Mindspace REIT’s asset SPVs (special purpose vehicle). Loan to value of Mindspace REIT stood at 16.8 per cent as on September 30, 2022.
Dabur India: The FMCG company’s promoters (Burman family) have sold 1% stake in the company through the open market to raise funds for financing some ventures. The Burman family sold shares through its Gyan Enterprises and Chowdry Associates. The company had recently announced its entry into the women’s personal hygiene space with the launch of Fem Ultra Care Sanitary Napkins.
City Union Bank: The private sector lender has announced divergence in NPAs to the tune of Rs 259 crore consisting of 13 borrower accounts (with an outstanding balance of more than Rs 1 crore) for an amount of Rs 230 crore and 218 borrowers (with an outstanding balance of less than Rs 1 crore) for an amount of Rs 29 crore for the year ended March 2022. Also, there was a divergence in provisioning amounting to Rs 40 crore for the same period. The divergence is the difference between NPAs reported by the bank and assessed by the RBI.
Economy News
India’s Direct Tax collections for the fiscal 2023, stood at Rs 11,35,754 crore (as on December 17, 2022), up 19.81% from Rs 9,47,959 crore in the same period of the preceding fiscal 2022. The Net Direct Tax collection includes Corporation Tax of Rs 6,06,679 crore (net of refund) and Personal Income Tax including Securities Transaction Tax (STT) at Rs 5,26,477 crore (net of refund).
The government said there has been an increase in the speed of processing of income tax returns filed during the current fiscal, with almost 96.5% of the duly verified ITRs having been processed till December 17, 2022. This has resulted in faster issue of refunds with almost a 109% increase in the number of refunds issued in the current financial year. Refunds amounting to Rs. 2,27,896 crore have been issued in the FY23 till December 17, as against refunds of Rs.1,35,191 crore issued during the corresponding period in the preceding FY22, a growth of over 68.57%.
Global Markets
The US stock market was mixed as investors gauged rising interest rate and persistent high inflation amid higher energy stocks due to rising oil prices. For the week, the S&P 500 fell 0.19%, the Dow advanced 0.86%, and the Nasdaq lost 1.94%.
On the economic front, the Commerce Department raised its estimate of economic growth in the third quarter from 2.9% to 3.2%, boosted by upward revisions in health care spending and higher investment. Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims surprised modestly on the downside, and continuing claims recorded their first weekly drop since October. Personal incomes rose 0.4% in November 2022 in the US. The personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index rose 0.1% MoM in November. Meanwhile, yearly rate of inflation slowed to 5.5% in November from 6.1% in October, based on the personal consumption expenditures index. The core PCE index, which is the preferred measure for inflation by the Fed, rose 4.7% year-over-year and 0.2% on a monthly basis.
Japan’s stock market fell during the week, with the Nikkei 225 index tumbling 4.69% and the broader Topix index declining 2.68%. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan said that it would modify its policy of yield curve control (YCC), allowing 10-year Japanese government bond yields to rise as high as 0.50% from earlier cap of 0.25%. Japan’s core consumer inflation hit a fresh 40-year high of 3.7% in November as companies continued to pass on rising costs to households, data showed on Friday.
Japan’s core consumer inflation hit a 40-year high of 3.7% in November 2022 due to rising cost across various sectors of the country’s economy, according to government data. In October 2022, the reading was 3.6%. The core index, excluding food and energy prices, rose 2.8% in November from a year earlier, increasing from a 2.5% increase in October.
Chinese stocks fell as coronavirus cases jumped and investors were worried over country’s growth outlook. The Shanghai Composite index tanked 3.85%, the CSI 300 index lost 3.19%, while the Hang Seng index rose 0.7% during the week. China’s central bank maintained its one-year loan prime rate at 3.65% and its five-year loan prime rate at 4.30%.
Meanwhile, the World Bank slashed its China’s economic growth projections for this year and next year due to the rising cases of Covd-19 cases and the country’s ongoing property market slump. The bank projected that China’s economy would grow 2.7% this year and 4.3% in 2023, down from its earlier forecasts of 2.8% growth this year and 4.5% in 2023.