On Monday, the stock of IREDA surged over 13% intraday after the company was granted Navratna status by the government. Earlier, IREDA already had Mini-Ratna status. The stock of IREDA had come out with an IPO late last year at Rs33 per share. However, post listing, the stock had been one of the stand-out performers rallying more than 6 times to well above Rs200. In the last couple of months, the stock nearly retreated 45% from the peak levels. However, solid Q4 results and Navratna status should be big positives.
Some of India’s leading FMCG companies are likely to make hay in the hot summer. With temperatures soaring, the sales of juices, fizz drinks, ice creams and milk-based beverages has surged this year. This has come as a boon to companies like Parle Agro, ITC Foods, Mother Dairy, Coca-Cola, and Rasna, with all of them ramping up production and boosting stocks of low-unit packs. Compared to 2023, sales of summer drinks are expected to be, at least, 25% higher in this year. The focus this time is on low sales unit packs.
Over 100 minority shareholders of ICICI Securities filed a class action suit with NCLT, protesting delisting plans of ICICI Securities. The primary opposition is to the share swap ratio of 67 shares of ICICI Bank for 100 shares of ICICI Securities. Investors feel the deal is loaded in favour of ICICI Bank and detrimental to the interests of I-Sec shareholders. In the shareholder vote, 71.9% of the votes got cast in favour of the demerger proposal. However, Quantum MF raised the first objection to the deal as flawed and irregular.
The promoters of Indian companies surely appear to be making the best of the recent stock price rally and reducing their promoter pledges. In FY24, promoters have rapid loans of $6.9 billion taken through promoter pledge of shares and got these shares released. Over 30% of the pledge releases happened at the Adani group. Promoters pledge shares for funding and this is normally considered to be an overhang on the stock. The promoter pledging data has to be shared with the stock exchanges on a quarterly basis.
Just 2 years after the first Silver ETF was launched in India, total AUM of silver ETFs in India has grown to Rs5,000 crore. To be fair, this can be largely attributed to the massive rally in silver prices. However, this is appreciable in the light of the fact that gold ETFs have an AUM of just about Rs31,000 crore, after being around for over 20 years in India. During the March 2024 quarter, silver ETFs got fresh inflows of over Rs1,500 crore as per data released by NSE. Silver is not only a precious metal, but an industrial metal too.
Ultratech Cement reported 35.54% yoy growth in net profits at Rs2,258 crore for the quarter to March 2024. Even on a sequential basis, the net profits are higher by 27.1%. Revenues in Q4FY24 were up 9.4% at Rs20,419 crore. For full year FY24, Ultratech reported 38.3% rise in net profits at Rs7,005 crore and 12.1% increase in revenues at Rs70,908 crore. Ultratech also announced an interim dividend of Rs70 per share for the quarter. Ultratech is the largest cement company in India with over 140 MTPA of capacity.
Manipal Hospitals signed a binding agreement to acquire 87% stake in Kolkata-based hospital chain, Medica Synergie, in a deal estimated at around Rs1,400 crore. This fits with Manipal group’s strategy to expand its presence in East India. In late 2023, Manipal Hospitals acquired 84% stake in AMRI Hospitals of the Emami group. The latest deal will push the total hospital bed count to over 10,500, making it bigger than Apollo Hospitals on a pan-India basis. It will take their network to 37 hospitals across 19 Indian cities.
Poonawalla Fincorp reported record quarterly net profits at Rs332 crore for Q4FY24. That is nearly 84% higher on a yoy basis and about 25% higher on a QOQ basis. For FY24, net profits of the company were up 83% at Rs1,27 crore. Total revenues for Q4FY24 were up 58.6% at Rs915 crore. In the quarter, it also saw its AUM grow 55% to Rs25,003 crore. Asset quality stayed robust with gross NPAs at 1.16% and net NPAs at 0.59%. Net interest margins (NIMs) in the quarter were up 4 bps at 11.06%. The stock traded up.