Inaugurating the tur dal procurement portal, Amit Shah affirmed that India will be self-sufficient in pulses in the next 3 years. The new portal empowers the farmers to directly sell their tur dal to NAFED and NCCF at a minimum support price or market price. If the open market price is higher than the MSP, the farmer also has the option to sell in the open market. Pulses production has increased in the last 10 years to 26.05 million metric tons, largely due to a sharp increase in the MSP. However, India still relies on imports.
Retail consumption grew 9.3% in 11 key B2C sectors in H1-FY24. The FMCG and e-commerce sectors experienced annual increases of 26.2% and 19.4%, respectively, during the second quarter. Consumption has been rising in tandem with falling inflation. Even the aviation and hospitality sectors grew by 29.7% and 12.8%, respectively, in Q2. The jewelry sector saw annual growth of 7.1%, which can be explained by festival demand. Much of the growth came from semi-urban and rural centers rather than the big metros.
Grasim Industries announced a rights issue worth Rs 4,000 crore. It will issue 2.2 crore shares on a rights basis to existing shareholders at Rs 1,812 per share, 12% lower than the market price. January 10, 2024, will be the record date. The rights issue will open on January 17, 2024, and close on January 29, 2024. The rights entitlement ratio will be 6:179. It will be the tenth largest rights issue in India, the biggest being the Reliance rights worth Rs 53,124 crore, while Airtel raised Rs 46,000 crore in two tranches in 2019 and 2021.
AMFI announced the new market cap category list across large caps, mid-caps, and small caps for the first half of calendar 2024. The large-cap cut-off stands at Rs67,000 crore, and the mid-cap cut-off stands at Rs22,000 crore. Jio Financial is now a large-cap stock, while other recent listings like Tata Technologies, IREDA, and JSW Infrastructure entered the mid-cap segment. The AMFI categorization is the benchmark for mutual funds. PFC, IRFC, Polycab, Macrotech, IOB, Union Bank, etc. moved from mid-caps to large caps.
Canada based, Brookfield Asset Management, is in the final stages of negotiations to buy a 100% stake in ATC India, a unit of American Towers Corporation (ATC). There seems to have been a change at the last minute as the US private equity firm, I-Squared Capital, was the front-runner to buy ATC’s India unit. This will be the second big-bang transaction for Brookfield in India after it bought out Reliance Jio’s telecom tower assets in 2019 for $3.6 billion. Brookfield has a telecom tower INVIT and Data Infrastructure Trust.
In, what could be a reprieve for the Adani Group, the Supreme Court refused to transfer the investigation currently being carried out by SEBI to a separate Special Investigation Team (SIT). While it may not have larger implications, the Adani group has interpreted it as a moral victory. However, the SC has asked SEBI to conclude the investigations into the allegations made by Hindenburg within 3 months. The SC does not want to second-guess SEBI, which is a statutory regulatory body, and that is the right way.
Reliance Jio added 31.59 lakh mobile users in October 2023, while Bharti Airtel added just 3.52 lakh, and Vodafone Idea lost a whopping 20.44 lakh wireless subscribers. This takes the subscriber base of Reliance Jio to 45.23 crore subscribers as of the end of October 2023. Bharti Airtel is in second place with 37.81 crore subscribers. At the same time, the persistent loss of subscribers for Vodafone Idea has taken its wireless user base to 22.54 crore. Vodafone Idea has been struggling to raise funds amidst a serious cash crunch.
DCM Shriram, one of India’s leading chlor alkali manufacturers, has signed an MOU with the Government of Gujarat to invest Rs 12,000 crore to manufacture chemical and petrochemical products in Bharuch by 2028. The deal was signed during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in 2024. DCM Shriram, incidentally, already has substantial chloral alkali capacity in Bharuch and plans to expand capacity. The major business divisions of Delhi-based DCM Shriram include chlor-vinyl businesses, agri-businesses, and value-added businesses.