PVR Limited and INOX Leisure approved an all-stock merger. Once the approvals from shareholders and regulators are through, Inox will merge into PVR. Shareholders of Inox will get shares of PVR as per the swap ratio and Inox promoters will become co-promoters of combined entity. Ajay Bijli will be the CEO of the merged entity. The combined entity will be PVR Inox Ltd but screens will continue with individual branding. This will help in the post-pandemic recovery. PVR operates 871 screens and INOX 675 screens.
Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have pulled out Rs.114,856 crore from Indian markets in FY22, out of which a whopping Rs.48,252 crore of equities were sold in Mar-22 itself. The FPI selling has exacerbated due to inflationary pressures, rising inflation and the Russia-Ukraine war. Mar-22 marks the 6th successive month of FPI selling in Indian equities. The fact that India is a net importer of crude for meeting 85% of its daily oil needs, makes matters worse. Geopolitical risk has resulted in risk-off selling by the FPIs in India.
The top 10 companies on the Nifty saw market cap depletion of Rs.114,202 crore in the previous week. The markets were dragged down by Hindustan Unilever and the HDFC Twins even as the Sensex tapered by 86 bps during the week. Hindustan Unilever lost Rs.34,786 crore, HDFC Bank Rs.26,892 crore, HDFC Rs.20,348 crore, ICICI Bank Rs.14,373 crore, SBI Rs.10,174 crore and Bharti Airtel Rs.7,442 crore. Among gainers, Reliance added Rs.79,188 crore, TCS Rs.12,114 crore and Infosys Rs.9,404 crore during the week.
A total of 54 prominent companies have expressed interest in acquiring Reliance Capital from the NCLT. The list includes marquee names like Adani Finserv, ICICI Lombard, Tata AIG, HDFC Ergo, Nippon Life, Yes Bank, Bandhan Bank, Chola Investment, Oaktree Capital, Blackstone, Brookfield, TPG, KKR, Piramal Finance and Poonawala Finance. Reliance Capital is the third NBFC where the RBI has initiated bankruptcy proceedings to protect markets from systemic risk. The other two cases were IL&FS and Dewan Housing.
India’s Steel Minister, R P Singh, has indicated that the Indian steel industry may continue importing coking coal from Russia despite calls from the Western nations for sanctions on Russia. He even hinted that India could double coking coal imports from Russia as they were offering fantastic discounts. Russia is India’s 6th largest supplier of coking coal. Coking coal is one of the key ingredients in the manufacture of steel. With local coal output back on track, India will be reducing dependence on foreign heating coal.
Adani Total Gas has forayed into the electric mobility infrastructure segment by launching its first electric vehicle (EV) charging station in Ahmedabad. Adani Total Gas is part of the Adani group. Adani Total Gas is the country’s largest private CNG and piped cooking gas distributor. Adani Total Gas plans to scale up its network by setting up 1,500 EV charging stations across India. Adani Total Gas has the inherent capacity to generate renewable power through group level synergies for sourcing green power from Adani Green.
DLF plans to invest Rs.2,000 crore to construct two new shopping malls in Gurugram and Goa. It sees huge potential in organised retail with a lot of revenge buying coming in. After downplaying its retail realty portfolio for the last few years, DLF is again planning to go aggressive. Currently, DLF has a retail footprint of 42 lakh SFT spread across 8 properties, including malls and shopping centres in the Delhi-NCR region. DLF has the credibility with the retailers to the extent that the big retail names automatically come in.
Bharti Airtel paid Rs.8,815 crore of spectrum fees ahead of schedule to clear deferred liabilities for spectrum acquired in 2015. The idea was to save on interest outgo. Actually these instalments were only due in FY27 and FY28. In last 4 months, Bharti has paid Rs.24,334 crore of deferred spectrum dues ahead of schedule. It is not just Bharti but even Reliance Jio has prepaid Rs.41,583 crore of spectrum dues ahead of schedule. With a strong balance sheet, both companies are using cheap finance options to repay dues.