Bajaj Allianz Life has entered into an agreement with Satin Creditcare for extending insurance inclusion to the rural areas. Now, customers of Satin Creditcare can get loans with customised insurance plans from Bajaj Allianz Life through its 1,386 branches nationwide. Rural India continues to remain outside the ambit of the organized financial system. The plans offered to the rural households will be simple and with some guaranteed payouts, starting as early as the second policy year. Plans are customised to individual needs.
Government of India hiked sugarcane fair and remunerative price (FRP) by Rs25 to Rs340 per quintal. This applies to sugar season 2024-25 commencing in October 2024 and extend all the way to September 2025. FRP is the minimum price that mills have to pay to sugarcane growers. The move assumes significance coming just ahead of the elections. This will ensure basic recovery rate of 10.25%. The FRP was determined on the basis of the detailed recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
Ambuja Cements, part of Adani group, will set up a modern cement grinding unit at investment of Rs1,000 crore. The 4 MTPA capacity plant will come up in Godda district, Jharkhand. Final approvals are awaited. Strategically, this plant is located near to Adani Power (Jharkhand) Ltd to enable environment friendly disposal of fly ash. The project will create 2,500 jobs. This is their third cement plant in Jharkhand and takes Adani group cement capacity to 77 MTPA across 18 integrated cement plants and 18 grinding units.
Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are the new driver of outsourced growth in India and are expected to lease 45-50 million SFT of office space in top-6 cities. They will account for 40% of all commercial leasing. This shows confidence among global corporates to set up GCCs in India. GCC leasing in India grew 14% in 2023 with about 12.4 million SFT being leased. Growing interest of Engineering, manufacturing and Healthcare sectors will diversify the GCC landscape. GCCs are also looking for flexible workplace solutions.
Private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners, raised $6.8 billion for investing in start-ups, including Indian start-ups. Currently, CVC has $1 billion in India investments across 4 companies, including IPL franchise of Gujarat Titans. CVC will invest bulk of the new monies raised in equities and credit products. According to CVC, blue chip investors have participated in this funding round, with most of them very excited about investing in India. CVC has more than 80 investments in Asia and its AUM is around $200 billion globally.
The stock of Zee Entertainment plunged 14% on Wednesday after Zee clarified that it was not in talks with Sony for revival of merger talks. But, the bigger trigger for the fall was the Bloomberg report stating that SEBI had found a $240 million hold in the accounts of Zee. According to reports, this money may have been diverted out of the company and into personal accounts through a maze of transactions. That is nearly 10 times more than the original allegation made by SEBI. Zee is already down 30% in calendar 2024.
Wipro has secured a new deal from Intel Foundry, the global semiconductor leader. Under the deal, Wipro engineers will work on Intel’s latest “18A” chip node, what will power the electronic devices of the future. This is expected to be one of the largest deals for Wipro, although deal size was not disclosed. This deal will cater to chip designs for clients across automotive, industrial and telecommunications verticals. They will be largely used for Generative-AI driven designs. This is part of Wipro’s new AI-360 service ecosystem. Coal India Ltd (CIL) is expected to exceed its capex target of Rs16,500 crore for FY24. Currently, Coal India accounts for over 80% of domestic coal output. Even NLC India Ltd is expected to exceed its annual capex target of Rs2,880 crore this year. Over the past few years, coal Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) have been doing better than their capex targets for FY22 and for FY23. NLC India Ltd, formerly known as Neyveli Lignite Corporation, is a Navratna company under the coal ministry focused on mining and power.