General Awareness

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY - May 2018

May 2018

May 26, 2021

RIL, TCS, Infy and SBI Common Thread in India's M-cap Milestones

Reliance Industries (RIL), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and the State Bank of India (SBI) are the only four consistent names in the list of top 10 companies when India hit the milestone of $1 trillion, $ 2 trillion and $ 3 trillion in market capitalisation. India first hit the $1 trillion m-cap mark in May 2007. Over a span of 14 years, the top 10 list has undergone considerable change with names like Reliance Communications, ONGC and NTPC disappearing from the list and new names like Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bajaj Finance stamping their authority. The current list and the list when India hit the $2 trillion milestone in July 2017 are fairly identical as they share seven companies.

HDFC Further Sells Reliance Infra Shares

The country's largest mortgage lender HDFC Ltd has sold further shares of Reliance Infrastructure worth over Rs. 43 crore, which were held by it through the invocation of pledged shares.
The corporation has further sold 81,05,677 shares representing 3.08 per cent of the share capital of Reliance Infrastructure.
The sale was carried out through stock exchanges at the prevailing market price.
Earlier this month, the corporation had sold 52,88,507 shares, equivalent to 2.01 per cent, of Reliance Infrastructure for over Rs. 22.86 crore.
HDFC acquired shares of the Anil Ambani controlled engineering and construction major on account of invocation of pledge through Axis Trustee Services Ltd.

PharmEasy Acquires Medlife

PharmEasy has acquired Medlife for an undisclosed amount. The deal will make PharmEasy the largest player in the domestic online pharmacy sector, with the combined entity set to serve 2 million customers a month.
This acquisition spells the end of Medlife as a brand. Medlife customers just need to login to the PharmEasy app to start using their Medlife account via the same mobile number. All digitised prescriptions and saved addresses dating back to a year will be available," he added. Besides users, PharmEasy will also onboard Medlife's retail partners.

UK Considering all Options for Liberty Steel

As per reports, Britain is considering all options for Liberty Steel after the collapse of its main lender Greensill Capital, but nationalisation was the least likely route.
Liberty Steel, which employs 3,000 people in Britain, was planning to sell three 'non-core' UK plants as part of a major restructuring.

India Attracts Record FDI in FY21

According to data released by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), foreign direct equity investments (FDI) inflows grew by 19 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in financial year 2020-21 (FY21) to a record $59.64 billion.
Despite the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in FY21, India attracted the highest ever total FDI inflow, which includes equity capital of unincorporated bodies, reinvested earnings, and other capital. Total FDI stood at $81.72 billion, up 10 per cent YoY.
Gujarat was the top recipient of FDI among states, with 37 per cent share of total FDI equity inflows, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka with 27 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.

Guidelines for Merging District Central Co-op Banks with State Ones

The Reserve Bank will consider amalgamation of District Central Co-operative Banks (DCCBs) with State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) subject to various conditions, including that a proposal should be made by the state government concerned.
The Banking Regulation (Amendment) Act, 2020 has been notified for the StCBs and DCCBs with effect from April 1, 2021. Amalgamations of such banks need to be sanctioned by the Reserve Bank of India.
RBI has come out with the guidelines after a few state governments approached it for amalgamation of DCCBs with StCBs as a two-tier Short-term Co-operative Credit Structure (STCCS).
As per the guidelines, RBI will consider proposals for amalgamation when the state government of the state makes a proposal to amalgamate one or more DCCB/s in the state with the StCB after conducting a detailed study of the legal framework.
Besides, there should be a an additional capital infusion strategy, assurance regarding financial support if required, projected business model with clear profitability and proposed governance model for the amalgamated bank.
The scheme of amalgamation has to be approved by the requisite majority of shareholders. Also, NABARD has to examine and recommend the proposal of the state government.

May 25, 2021

Liberty Steel to Sell UK Plant in Restructuring Plan

Liberty Steel, the company led by British Indian businessman Sanjeev Gupta, announced very constructive and productive meetings as part of its ongoing restructuring plans, which will result in the sale of its Stocksbridge plant in south-east England to help pay back lender Credit Suisse.
Gupta and his newly-formed Restructuring and Transformation Committee held advanced discussions with Credit Suisse Asset Management (CS) in Dubai to reach a formal standstill agreement on its Liberty Primary Metals Australia business while refinancing is completed that will repay Credit Suisse out in full.
The investment bank has, meanwhile, agreed to pause court proceedings against Gupta's empire while the sale of Stocksbridge is conducted.

Version 3.0 of MCA21 Launched

The first phase of India's first mission mode e-governance project, MCA21 was launched on by Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Anurag Thakur. This version of MCA21 is data analytics driven.
MCA21 version 3.0 was highlighted during budget 2021-2022. This project makes use of new technologies to streamline corporate compliance and experiences of stakeholders. It will be implemented in two phases for which second and third phase will be launched in October 2021. First phase of the project consists of new email services for MCA officers, revamped website, eBook and eConsultation.
Version 3.0 of MCA 21 was launched to: Promote Ease of Doing Business, Strengthen the enforcement, Facilitate seamless integration, Exchange data among regulators and Enhance user experience.

Zeta Enters Unicorn Club

Banking technology startup Zeta is the latest entrant to the unicorn club after raising $250 million in its Series C round from SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Sodexo participated as an additional minority investor in the round.
Founded by serial entrepreneur and billionaire Bhavin Thurakia, the startup is now valued at $1.4 billion. It is the 14th company this year to cross the $1 billion valuation mark after Meesho, Cred, Pharmeasy, ShareChat, Moglix and others.
The proceeds of this funding round will be used to accelerate Zeta's growth in the United States, Europe and India, including scaling its operations, team, and platform to meet the demands of its expanding customer base.

Foreign Direct Investment Jumps in 2020-21

According to the commerce and industry ministry, foreign direct investments (FDI) into the country grew 19 per cent to USD 59.64 billion during 2020-21 on account of measures taken by the government on the fronts of policy reforms, investment facilitation and ease of doing business.
Total FDI, including equity, re-invested earnings and capital, rose 10 per cent to the "highest ever" of USD 81.72 billion during 2020-21 as against USD 74.39 billion in 2019-20.
FDI equity inflow grew by 19 per cent in 2020-21 (USD 59.64 billion), compared to 2019-20 (USD 49.98 billion).
In terms of top investor countries, Singapore is at the top with 29 per cent share. It was followed by the US (23 per cent) and Mauritius (9 per cent) during the last fiscal.

Bank of Baroda's New Cheque Payment Rule

Bank of Baroda has issued a new notification for its customers regarding the stringent rules of cheque payment that is going kick in from the beginning of next month.
The bank from June 1, the bank is going to make Positive Pay confirmation mandatory. Under this, if the payment of more than Rs. 2 lakh is made through cheque, then the customer will have to confirm again. The transaction will be completed only when this process completes. Otherwise the cheque will be cancelled.
The bank said that confirmation can be done by the bank for cheque worth more than Rs 50,000. Customers can give confirmation by net banking, mobile banking, branch phone or SMS. For this, it will be necessary to share the name of the beneficiary, the amount (in rupees), the date of the cheque when it was issued, the amount numbers, the account number and the cheque number.

Olectra Greentech Lowest Bidder for Supply of E-buses

A consortium of Electric bus manufacturer Olectra Greentech and its sister concern Evey Trans Pvt Ltd has emerged as the least quoted bidder for the supply of 100 electric buses.
Consortium of Evey Trans Pvt Ltd (EVEY) and Olectra Greentech Ltd has been declared as least quoted (L-1) bidder for another 100 electric buses (for Inter-City Operations) by one of the State Transport Corporation under the FAME-I1 scheme of Government of India.
Value of this tender is approximately Rs. 250 crore.

May 24, 2021

Leonard Blavatnik UK's Richest Person

Leonard Blavatnik has topped the latest Sunday Times Rich List, having seen his fortune swell to £23bn.
The Ukranian-born oil and media magnate, who also owns Warner Music, saw his wealth surge by £7.2bn during the year.
He took the title from Sir James Dyson, whose wealth rose by only £100m to £16.3bn, leaving him in fourth place.
There are now a record 171 billionaires in UK, with their wealth rising 21.7% during the pandemic to £597.2bn.
Mr. Blavatnik made his fortune in Russia where he owned stakes worth billions of pounds in companies selling metal and oil. He is a notoriously-private man, and holds both US and UK citizenship.
His wealth was boosted by the proceeds of a £1.37bn stake in Warner, which he received when it listed on the stock market in the US last year.

SC Allows Banks to Invoke Personal Guarantees of Defaulters

In a significant verdict spelling troubles for personal guarantors to corporate debtors, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Centre's notification allowing banks to proceed against such persons for recovery of loans given to a firm under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
A Bench comprising Justices L. Nageswara Rao and S. Ravindra Bhat held that approval of the resolution plan for revival of sick companies under the IBC does not discharge personal guarantors of their liability to pay back the banks or financial institutions (FIs) as they are bound by separate contracts.

May 23, 2021

SBI and HyperVerge Partner for AI-powered Online Account Opening

HyperVerge announced its partnership with SBI, with one of its flagship products, the Video Banking solution, which aims to achieve a 10x improvement in the number of account openings per day per agent. The new service will offer a quick and completely paperless experience to customers with minimal ID documents. Assisted by AI engines with an accuracy of 99.5%, HyperVerge's Video Banking solution enables SBI to provide convenient digital banking services to millions of Indians.
Last year, the Reserve Bank of India (equivalent to the Federal Reserve) allowed banks to adopt the Video Customer Identification Process (V-CIP). This measure has proven to be prophetic given the rising Covid-19 cases.
The technology developed by the Palo Alto headquartered company is critical at this hour since it helps financial institutions deliver uninterrupted services, and save the cost and time spent on manual processing.
For comparison, manual checks by an agent can take up to 25 minutes, while HyperVerge's solution completes the entire process within 5 minutes.
The Video Banking solution can be supported on multiple platforms.
Additionally, the solution performs pre-qualifier checks on customer details, schedules video calls with high throughput and performs AI-driven Liveness, OCR, and Facematch checks. This technology has long-term implications for an organization's efficiency.

IDBI Bank Launches Digital Loan Processing System

IDBI Bank Limited announced the launch of its fully digitised, end-to-end, Loan Processing System (LPS) for its MSME and Agri products.
This new loan processing system seamlessly integrates with data fintechs, bureau validations, document storage/retrieval, account opening/management, customer notifications, and portfolio management capabilities along with embodied policy/knock off parameters.
These features of the fully digitised and automated loan processing system are further aimed at providing a superior tech-enabled banking experience to bank's MSME & Agri.customers.
The platform is designed to incorporate knock-off criteria & credit policy parameters for superior underwriting standards.

SEBI Doubles AIFs Overseas Investment Limit

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) doubled the overseas investment limit of alternative investment funds (AIFs) to $1.5 billion. The decision was taken following consultation with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
In 2015, SEBI had created a $500-million allowance for overseas investment. However, domestic AIFs were only allowed to invest a fourth of their corpus overseas. Also, overseas investments were required to have an Indian connection. In 2018, the limit was increased from $500 million to $750 million.
Doubling of the overseas investment allowance to $1.5 billion will enable Indian AIFs to invest overseas and generate strong returns for their investors. This will allow greater Indian participation in global companies and will accelerate the growth of the Indian AIF industry overall.

Axis Bank Awaits Nod to Reclassify 3 Promoters as Public Shareholders

Private sector Axis Bank said that three promoters United India Insurance Company, National Insurance Company and New India Assurance Company will be reclassified as public category shareholders post requisite regulatory approvals.
The bank has identified the administrator of the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI), Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), General Insurance Corporation, New India Assurance Company, National Insurance Company, United India Insurance Company, and Oriental Insurance Co Ltd as the promoters.
Three promoter entities United India Insurance, National Insurance and New India Assurance have made a request to reclassify them to "public" category from "promoter" category, in terms of SEBI regulations.

May 22, 2021

JSW Steel Examining Bid for Sanjeev Gupta's British Business

As per reports, India's largest steel producer, JSW Steel, is considering a bid to buy Liberty Steel in Britain as well as mills elsewhere.
JSW's interest, which extends to plants including Gupta's Adhunik steel mill in eastern India, could mark yet another chapter for Britain's steel industry, which has been privatised and sold to overseas buyers as its pre-eminence slid in lock-step with the country's manufacturing might.
A sale would also chip away at Gupta's sprawling network of businesses, comprising hundreds of privately-held companies with interests spanning steel, aluminium, mining, financial services and real estate, built up over years of acquisitions.

Essel Group Celebrates 95 Years of Completion

The Essel Group which owns news and entertainment media venture along with business in finance and infrastructure celebrated the 95th successful years on May 21.
Sharing the message on social media Essel Group chairman and Rajya Sabha member Dr. Subhash Chandra said that celebrations will take place this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organisation will next celebrate its 100th year.

Tata Steel to Re-enter Sensex

Tata Steel will replace state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in the benchmark Sensex, the BSE announced. The change will become effective from June 21. Analysts said that the move will result in inflows of $119 million in Tata Steel and selling of $58 million from ONGC by passive funds benchmarked to the Sensex index. In December 2020, Dr. Reddy's had replaced Tata Steel in the 30-share index.

RBI to Transfer Rs. 99,122 cr as Dividend to Govt. Changes Accounting Year

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will transfer Rs. 99,122 crore as surplus to the central government for the nine months ended March 31 (July 2020-March 2021).
This is much higher than what most had estimated and what the government itself had budgeted for. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had earmarked a transfer of Rs. 53,511 crore.
The transfer was approved in the meeting of the regulator's central board, during which the RBI's annual report was also approved.
The central bank has changed its accounting period, aligning it with the fiscal calendar (April-March) from this year, instead of the earlier July-June calendar.

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