Jio to rollout broadband, Rupee hits all time low, a hope for recovery for SBI- Weekly Digest #65

Anil Agarwal’s Volcan Investments, the holding company of Vedanta Resources Plc, has announced its plans to acquire 33.5% of the public shareholding and delist the group flagship company from the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The transaction is expected to cost Volcan $1.1 billion.
The SEBI has directed ICICI Prudential AMC to pay ₹240 crore, the amount of the bids made on the final day of the ICICI Securities IPO to all the five schemes that subscribed to it. The amount would have to be paid with 15% interest p.a.
Railway consultancy firm RITES made a strong debut on the stock exchanges. It got listed at ₹190 on the BSE, over its issue price of ₹185 and closed for the day at ₹212.7.
Competition Commission of India has cleared the merger of Bharti Infratel with Indus Towers, which will create a $14.6 billion company which will have 1.63 lakh towers worldwide.

After witnessing a slew of exits, restaurant discovery and food-delivery firm Zomato, in order to strengthen its top management has brought on-board former COO of MakeMyTrip, Mohit Gupta as the CEO of its food- delivery business.
IHH Healthcare Bhd and Manipal Health Enterprises backed by TPG Asia are left in the race to acquire India’s second-largest hospital chain, Fortis Healthcare. This comes after withdrawal of Sunil Kant Munjal of Hero Enterprises and the Burman family of the Dabur group besides Radiant Life Care.
The rupee made a strong comeback against the US currency, rising by a steep 23 paise to end at 68.57. Heavy intervention by the Reserve Bank along with the positive trend in local equity markets largely supported the home currency.
Due to talks about the TATA group possibly merging its food businesses into a single company to put more focus on the FMCG segment, the group stock saw a general lift. Shares of Tata Coffee jumped nearly 13% to ₹12.86, while beverage company Tata Global surged 6% to ₹280.95.

Biyani’s Future Lifestyle Fashion to buy nearly 30% in Koovs for about ₹140 crore. The transaction is expected to make the Future Group the largest shareholder in the AIM London-listed fashion e-commerce company.
Shriram Transport Finance shares fell 12% amid concerns of a potential loss after it disclosed an off-balance sheet exposure of ₹870 crore to a group company. The share price closed at ₹1,144.85 on BSE.
Hong Kong-headquartered brokerage CLSA has removed ICICI Bank, Zee Entertainment Enterprises and Ramco Cements from its model portfolio and added weight to Sun Pharma and Maruti Suzuki India. The foreign brokerage said the changes were in line with its cautious view on equity markets.
CDC Group, the UK Government-owned private equity company, has invested ₹325 crore in rupee-denominated masala bonds issued by IIFL Finance, reflecting increasing investor interest in domestic nonbanking companies.

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani unveiled the group’s ambitious plans for a fibre-based home broadband service which will be rolled out across 1,100 cities and target 50 million homes. This triggered a sell-off in the shares of cable companies amid anticipation of disruption, with the share price of RIL falling 2.5% to ₹965.
After the announcement of Reliance Jio to spread to the cable TV and broadband space, Hathway’s scrip crashed 15.4% to close at ₹20.6 apiece on the BSE, DEN Network’s shares closed 10.7% down at ₹66.55.
The valuation gap between TCS and Infosys reached its widest after the latter’s stock closed 4.5% lower at ₹1,284.5 on the BSE. The stock of TCS touched a 52-week high of ₹1,887.
The rupee fell for the second straight session to hit a fresh closing low of 68.95, sliding by 21 paise. This has been due to a panic demand for the US dollar coupled with savage capital flight worries.

India has rejected the Chinese government’s request to allow its carriers to add more flights on the India-China route after strong opposition from Indian carriers which felt that the move would jeopardise their own expansion plans.
A UK Court has ruled in favour of Indian banks by granting permission to local authorities to enter the estate of Vijay Mallya and seize possessions. This gives SBI another hope to recover their dues.
Care has upgraded Yes Bank’s credit rating to the highest AAA from AA+ for infrastructure bonds and tier-II bonds. The rating upgrades reflect the bank’s “robust financial performance, creditworthiness, and increasing share of current and savings account (CASA) as well as retail deposits.
RKM PowerGen, Jaiprakash Associates, IL&FS and MB Power are among seven companies that have bid the lowest in an auction of three-year power supply contracts with stressed plants, quoting a price of ₹4.24 per unit.

Source: The Economic Times

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