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Dalal Street ended lower as investors sentiments were dampened after the crisis at Credit Suisse and collapse of Silicon Valley Bank as well as Signature Bank in the US. For the week, the Sensex tumbled 1.94% to 57,989.90 and the Nifty 50 index lost 1.8% to 17,100.05.
In broader markets, the BSE Midcap index plunged 2.06% to 24,112.01. The BSE Smallcap index plummeted 2.81% to 27,167.74.
Top losers among Nifty sectoral indices were PSU Bank [-4.54%], Auto [-3.89%], Private Bank [-2.65%], IT [-2.34%] and Bank [-2.19%]. Top gainer was Realty [0.21%].
During the week, FIIs were net sellers in the cash segment as they sold Rs 7,953.7 crore and DIIs were net buyer for Rs 9,232.9 crore.
Indian rupee rose 18 paise to 82.55 against the US dollar on Friday [17-03-2023].
India VIX, a gauge for measuring the market volatility, jumped 10.10% during the week.
Company News
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): Rajesh Gopinathan has resigned as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company. K Krithivasan is appointed as the Chief Executive Officer Designate, with effective from March 16, who takes over as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of TCS in the next financial year, subject to shareholders’ approval.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL): The Competition Commission of India said it has approved Reliance Retail Ventures’ (RRVL’s) acquisition of METRO Cash & Carry India for Rs 2,850 crore. RRVL is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. In December last year, RRVL had signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 100% stake in the German firm Metro AG’s wholesale operations in India. With this acquisition, RRVL gets access to a wide network of METRO India stores across key cities.
Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL): Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in the meeting of the defence acquisition council, approved proposals to procure Rs 70,000 crore worth of different weapon systems for the Indian defence forces. The deal includes the purchase of 60 UH Marine choppers from Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), worth Rs 32,000 crore.
GAIL India: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved the state-owned GAIL’s Rs 2,079 crore resolution plan for JBF Petrochemicals, which owed Rs 7,918 crore to a consortium led by IDBI Bank. The other secured lenders of the company are Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Exim Bank and Indian Overseas Bank, among others. These lenders made a claim of Rs 4,584 crore, but NCLT admitted a total claim of Rs 4,662 crore. GAIL offered to pay the bankers Rs 2,015 crore, which is a 43.23% recovery for them. However, for the unsecured creditors and operational creditors, the recovery is much lower at 5.7% and 6.9%, respectively.
GAIL’s board has declared an interim dividend of 40 percent on the paid-up Equity Share Capital, which is Rs 4 per equity share for FY23. The total dividend amount will be Rs 2,630 crore and the record date is March 21, 2023. According to the current shareholding pattern, Government of India (51.52%) will receive a dividend of Rs 1,355 crore, while other shareholders will receive Rs 1,275 crore.
Tata Motors: The company’s luxury arm Jaguar Land Rover said that it is partnering with Tata Technologies to accelerate its digital transformation. As part of the collaboration, Tata Technologies will deliver end-to-end integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to transform Jaguar Land Rover’s manufacturing, logistics, supply chain, finance and purchasing modules by bringing data and knowledge from multiple departments into one single source. The first phase will include Jaguar Land Rover’s (JLR) UK core production facilities, with solutions subsequently deployed to other global locations.
State Bank of India (SBI) and Capacite Infraprojects: Capacite Infraprojects said that the company has received sanction for non-fund based limits totalling to Rs 150 crore from State Bank of India which is also the consortium leader. The limits will help Capacite in realising their pending receivable in the form of retention monies and mobilisation advance from the existing on-going projects. Capacite further stated that it is also engaging with other consortium members for sanction of balance assessed limits adding that it is hopeful other consortium members will also take up their part of assessed limits shortly.
Infosys: The company’s subsidiary, Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, has implemented its liquidity management solution for ABN AMRO’s corporate customers. The bank will now be able to provide its customers a single point of access to better manage their global commercial cash flows securely from anywhere and on any device of their choice.
Sona BLW Precision Forgings: Private equity firm Blackstone sold its 20.50% stake in the auto component maker for Rs 4,917 crore through an open market transaction. Blackstone, through its affiliate Singapore VII Topco III Pte Ltd offloaded the shares in Sona BLW. Singapore VII Topco III Pte is a promoter entity in Sona BLW. Monetary Authority of Singapore, Government of Singapore, BNP Paribas Arbitrage, Fidelity Asian Values Plc, Societe Generale, among others were the buyers of the shares.
KPIT Technologies: The company announced its partnership with Honda to realize the journey of Honda’s Software-Defined Mobility (SDM). KPIT’s deep domain and software expertise in the areas of autonomous driving, vehicle electrification, in-vehicle infotainment systems and platform software will help Honda to continue to provide various services and enhanced value to customers around the world in the future, KPIT Technologies said in a statement.
HDFC: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Friday gave its approval to the HDFC-HDFC Bank merger. The proposed entity will have a combined asset base of around Rs 18 lakh crore. The merger is expected to be completed by the second or third quarter of FY24, subject to regulatory approvals.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company: Shares of the company soared over 9% in intraday trade after the life insurer announced that Anup Bagchi will replace N. S. Kannan as managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) effective from 19 June 2023. N. S. Kannan, MD & CEO will superannuate from the services of the company on the completion of tenure of his appointment on 18 June 2023.
One 97 Communications (Paytm): The fintech company’s credit business rose to Rs 4,158 crore ($503 million) in February 2023, up 254% YoY, with number of loans rising 86% to 40 lakh compared to last year. According to its monthly performance update, the company’s consumer base continued to expand, with average monthly transacting users (MTU) of 8.9 crore for the quarter-to-date, increasing 28% over February 2022. Gross Merchant Payment Volumes (GMV) for the quarter-to-date (January and February 2023) stood at Rs 2.34 lakh crore ($28.3 billion), at an on-year growth of 41%. Number of merchants paying subscription for payment devices like Soundbox has reached 64 lakh as of February 2023.
JSW Energy: The company has raised Rs 250 crore via NCDs after its Finance Committee approved the allotment of 25,000 NCDs of Rs 1 lakh each. In October 2022, the board had approved raising of funds up to Rs 2,500 crore via NCDs on private placement basis. The date of maturity is March 13, 2026.
Shriram Finance: The NBFC is looking to sell up to 15% stake in its housing finance arm at a valuation of 10 billion rupees ($121.35 million), Reuters reported citing two senior sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Shriram Housing Finance has received interest from several private equity players, including BPEA EQT, formerly Baring PE Asia The company could take a final call on the deal by March-end after evaluating all the offers, one of the sources added.
In other news, Shriram Finance is looking to raise as much as 200 billion rupees ($2.44 billion) to fund its growth in the next financial year starting April, Reuters reported citing a senior company official. The retail NBFC aims to grow its assets under management (AUM) by 15% in FY2024 to around 1.9 trillion rupees to 2 trillion rupees, Umesh Revankar, executive vice chairman of Shriram Finance, said. The company’s total AUM was Rs 1.77 trillion rupees as of December 31, 2022.
DLF: The realty company announced that its latest luxury high-rise residence ‘The Arbour’ had witnessed pre-formal launch sales worth more than Rs 8,000 crore, in three days. ‘The Arbour’ is located at DLF Sixty-three on Golf Course Extension in Sector 63, Gurugram.
RateGain Travel Technologies: The company announced its Elite Connectivity Partner status with the Expedia Group. Expedia Group recognizes and rewards a select few connectivity partners who achieved excellent results on various performance metrics, such as maintaining high-quality connections and helping lodging partners grow their business on the Expedia Group marketplace. It also means that RateGain will work directly with Expedia Group to help shape their future products and technology solutions.
Ramkrishna Forgings and Titagarh Wagons: Both the companies as a consortium has emerged as the lowest bidder for supply of forged wheels to the Ministry of Railways. The consortium has to manufacture and supply around 15,40,000 wheels to the Indian Railways over a period of twenty years.
Paras Defence and Space Technologies: The company said that it has entered into an MoU with Israel-based CONTROP Precision Technologies to expand their business in the Indian and Global Defence sector. CONTROP Precision Technologies (CONTROP) is a privately owned company that specializes in the development and production of electro-optical and precision motion control systems for surveillance, defense and homeland security applications. Under the MoU, Paras and CONTROP intend to form a joint venture company (JV) in India for manufacturing electro-optic systems for various applications.
Jubilant FoodWorks: The company, which operates US fried-chicken chain Popeyes in India, plans to expand Popeyes India restaurant chain to 50 restaurants in the next one year and 250 restaurants in the medium-term. “We are confident that, we will scale Popeyes progressively in other regions across the country and recreate the same excitement and loyalty for the brand,” said Sameer Khetarpal, chief executive director and managing director of Jubilant FoodWorks Limited.
Economy News
India’s retail inflation, measured by the consumer price index (CPI), eased marginally to 6.44% in February against 6.52% in January. It stood at 6.07% a year ago. Food inflation eased marginally to 5.95% in February from the revised level of 6% in January, while inflation for cereals, milk, and fruits increased. Core inflation continued to remain above 6% for the fourth consecutive month. Also, rural inflation inched lower to 6.72% in February from 6.85% in January, and it continued to remain above urban inflation, which rose to 6.1% from 6%.
India’s annual wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation eased to 25-month low of 3.85% in February 2023 as compared to 4.73% recorded in January 2023 and 13.43% in February 2022. Decline in the rate of inflation in February 2023 is primarily contributed by fall in prices of crude petroleum & natural gas, non-food articles, food products, minerals, computer, electronic & optical products, chemicals & chemical products, electrical equipment and motor vehicles, trailers & semi-trailers.
Global Markets
The US market ended mixed for the week as investors were worried over the health of the banking sector and its impact on the US economic recovery. For the week, the Dow Jones index fell 0.15%, while the Nasdaq jumped 4.41% and the S&P 500 index gained 1.43%.
US retail sales contracted in February by 0.4% to $698 billion, down from a revised $701 billion a month earlier, the Commerce Department said. Meanwhile, a consortium of major US banks announced a $30 billion rescue package for embattled lender First Republic in an attempt to boost confidence in the US banking system. The group of 11 banks included JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.
Most Chinese shares closed positively as investors cheered signs of an economic recovery. The Shanghai Stock Exchange index added 0.63%, and the CSI 300 fell 0.21% and the Hang Seng index added 1.03%.
On the economic front, China’s industrial output rose 2.4% during the first two months of calendar year 2023, official data showed. Retail sales rose 3.5% for the same period. The People’s Bank of China kept the rate of one-year medium-term lending facility loans at 2.75%. New home prices in 70 of China’s largest cities rose 0.3% in February, above the 0.1% gain in January and marking the fastest increase since July 2021, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Further, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it will cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for most banks by 25 basis points to boost liquidity and the country’s economy.
Japanese markets tanked as market participants were concerned over the turmoil in the global banking sector. The Nikkei 225 index plunged 2.88% for the week and the broader Topix slumped 3.55%. The Japanese yen strengthened to about JPY 133 against the US dollar from around JPY 135 the previous week.