The Sensex has traversed the journey from 1,000 to 60,000 over a period of 31 years. It first touched 10,000 in Feb-06 and scaled 20,000 in Oct-07. It took more than 7 years to scale 30,000 in 2015, while the journey to 40,000 also took more than 4 years in May 2019. Interestingly, the levels of 50,000 and 60,000 were both scaled in the year 2021 itself with a gap of just 8 months. The last phase was led by triggers like the commodity boom, liquidity glut, COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the ambiguity of Fed towards tapering.
On Friday, the stock of PVR fell by 4% after CRISIL downgraded its ratings on bank facilities and debt on concerns over cash flows. According to CRISIL, the prolonged restrictions on operations had resulted in huge losses and doubts over its ability to service debt on a sustain basis. The slowdown in movie releases has also impacted the fortunes of PVR. Ironically, just a day after the CRISIL rating, the state government of Maharashtra allowed multiplexes to open with adequate controls. This should turn sentiments for PVR.
Yes Bank has decided to take the battle head on by calling for an extraordinary general meeting or EGM of shareholders to remove the directors. Jawahar Lal Goel, the younger brother of Subhash Chandra, runs Dish TV. Yes Bank became a 25% investor in Dish TV after the company defaulted on its Rs.3,000 crore loan. Dish TV had announced a Rs.1,000 crore rights issue, which Yes Bank had objected on the grounds that it would be dilutive. Essel group owns just about 6% in Dish TV against 25% holding for Yes Bank.
The 10 most valuable companies by market cap on the Nifty added Rs.156,317 crore in value during the previous week. The big gainers were again Reliance and Infosys. Reliance gained Rs.58,672 crore in the week while Infosys added Rs.30,605 crore in market cap. Among other value gainers, Bajaj Finance added Rs.22,173 crore, TCS Rs.15,111 crore, HDFC Bank Rs.10,142 crore and Bharti Airtel Rs.6,069 crore. Other stocks added smaller values. Interestingly, there was not a single top-10 stock losing value in the last week.
The new RBI auto debit rules on debit cards, credit cards, UPI and wallets kick in from 01-Oct. Under the new rules, all debit mandates above Rs.5,000 will need to be verified via additional factor authentication or AFA. This would be done by sending an OTP via SMS or email to the registered id. All existing recurring payment mandates, unless authenticated with AFA, will be rejected from October. A one-time registration of mandate is sufficient. However, bank debits via ECS for loan EMIs and mutual fund SIPs will continue.
Despite the announcement of the Zee Entertainment – Sony merger, Invesco and OFI China Fund have reiterated their demand for the removal of Punit Goenka from the post of MD and CEO. Incidentally, the merged entity has already appointed Punit Goenka as the CEO of the combined venture for a period of 5 years. While Invesco voted for the deal, they want the newly constituted board to evaluate the demand independently. Zee Entertainment and Sony Pictures will merge in the ratio of 53:47 in favour of Sony.
The digital end-to-end logistics company, Delhivery, has raised $125 million as funding from the Addition Fund, a unit of Tiger Global. Recently, in May 2021, Delhivery had raised $277 million from Fidelity. The start-up is also targeting an IPO in the near future. It counts marquee investors like GIC of Singapore, Chimera, Baillie Gifford and others. Even FedEx Express has invested $100 million in Delhivery. This start-up floated by the son of the former director of IIM-Ahmedabad, Samir Barua, is one of the fastest growers.
Indiabulls Housing Finance has repaid Rs.7,076 crore of NCDs in September. These include NCDs issued by Indiabulls Housing as well as its subsidiary. In the midst of the deleveraging drive across Indian companies, the Indiabulls group has realized that too much leverage will be counterproductive to solvency, rating, performance and valuations. For the bonds of $350 million maturing in May 2022, it has already created a 25% reserve and will raise the redemption reserve to 75% by February 2022 to give comfort to investors.
