Eicher Motors posted net profits of Rs.526 crore for the Mar-21 quarter, up by 73% yoy. Total revenues from operations for the quarter stood 33% higher at Rs.2,940 crore on volume spurt. Eicher recommended a final dividend of Rs.17 per share. Royal Enfield saw 25% growth in volumes to 203,403 units of motorcycle in the Mar-21 quarter. EBITDA was also up 47% at Rs.634 crore. For the Mar-21 quarter, VECV recorded strong 56% growth in volumes at 18,167 units. Eicher stock price closed slightly lower by 1%.
Paytm, the household digital payment platform, is planning a Rs.21,800 crore IPO, which will be the biggest in Indian history. The $3 billion IPO is planned towards the end of the year. Apart from Softbank and Ant Financial, even Berkshire Hathaway has a stake in Paytm. Paytm is tentatively targeting valuation in the vicinity of $25 billion to $30 billion. Till date, the largest IPO was Coal India, which had raised nearly Rs.15,000 crore. Of course, if the LIC IPO happens, it could be much bigger than this, but that is awaited.
Sun Pharma posted 124% growth in net profits for the Mar-21 quarter at Rs.894 crore. Consolidated sales from operations came in 4.4% higher at Rs.8,431 crore. This is broadly in line with street expectations on the company. Sun Pharma recorded 56% higher EBITDA at Rs.1,957 crore, resulting in EBITDA margins of 23.2% for the quarter. Sun Pharma is ranked No. 1 and holds close to 8.2% market share of the Indian pharmaceutical market. Sun launched a total of 31 new products in the Indian market during the quarter.
As per RBI Annual Report, Rs.25,702 crore has been raised via Sovereign Gold Bonds since its inception till Mar-21. The gold bond scheme was first launched in November 2015. The idea was to cut the demand for physical gold and shift part of domestic savings towards demat gold. In FY21, there were a total of 12 tranches of SGBs for an aggregate amount of Rs.16,049 crore entailing physical gold equivalent of 32.35 tonnes. The time table for the first 6 tranches for this fiscal is out and the second tranche is in progress.
It appears to be raining IPOs as even CarTrade has filed draft red herring prospectus or DRHP with SEBI with an intent to raise Rs.2,000 crore through an IPO. There will be no fresh issue component and the entire IPO will be an offer for sale or OFS of 12.35 million shares by existing investors, including Highdell, MacRitchie and Springfield. The IPO will reserve 75% of the offering for QIBs, 15% for HNIs and only 10% for retail bidders. CarTrade was founded by the former CEO of Mahindra First Choice, Mr. Vinay Sanghi.
RBI paid close to Rs.100,000 crore to the government as dividends largely on the back of hefty gains in foreign exchange transactions booked by the RBI. In addition, RBI has also sharply cut down provisions and other costs. Effective this year, RBI is shifting its fiscal year-end from June to March to align with the fiscal budget of the Union Government. In the latest year, the forex transactions spurted 70% to Rs.50,629 crore compared to just Rs.29,993 crore in the previous year. A forex accounting change also was helpful.
Pune based Krsnaa Diagnostics has filed DRHP with SEBI to raise funds via an IPO . The IPO will comprise of Rs.400 crore by way of fresh issue and an offer for sale of 94.16 lakh shares by existing shareholders including Phi Capital, Kitara, Somerset and Lotus. The company proposes to reserve 75% of the IPO size for QIBs, 15% for HNIs and just 10% for retail investors. The proceeds of the fresh issue will be used to expand diagnostics centres to Punjab, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra and to repay loans.
According to a report by EY India, India’s vaccination bill can be substantially minimised by adopting a fully centralised procurement model, rather than decentralizing procurement to states. EY India has called the current vaccine distribution structure very opaque. This is the reason why the pace of vaccination had fallen sharply in May. At the current rate of 23 lakh doses per day, India would need 748 days to achieve full coverage, which is infeasible. India requires 217 crore doses for full vaccination of its 12+ population.