JSW Steel has set its eyes on Neelachal Ispat after having completed the acquisition of Bhushan Power and Steel. Neelachal Ispat is a PSU with MMTC and NMDC holding stakes. Government plans to divest 93.71% in the company. Neelachal has a 1.1 million TPA capacity and produces pig iron and billets, essentially long products. JSW has already boosted its steel capacity by 2.5 MTPA after the Bhushan buy.
Neelachal fits into JSW’s strategy of enhancing downstream capabilities. Also, Neelachal is based out of Jharsuguda and along with Bhushan Power & Steel and Monnet marks a major foray into East India.
Cairn Energy of the UK will bring lawsuits in the US and other countries to pierce the corporate veil between the Indian government and PSU companies in the oil and gas, shipping, airline and banking sectors. The idea is to seize overseas Indian assets in these countries to recover $1.2 billion. This is as per the order of an international arbitration tribunal. These coves geographies like the US, UK, Canada, France, Singapore and the Netherlands. The government of India had held back dividends payable to Cairn UK by Vedanta and also forfeited shares in the Demat account and sold it in the market to partially recover the dues. This method had been used against the PDVSA of Venezuela. Cairn has apparently identified such assets across select geographies. Cairn is under pressure from its global shareholders to recover dues from India.
As India gets into a new green tax regime from April 2021, there are 4 crore vehicles that are more than 15 years old and still plying on roads. Out of these, nearly 2 crore vehicles are over 20 years old. Karnataka tops this list with 70 lakh vehicles. Uttar Pradesh occupies the second spot with 56.54 lakh vehicles and Delhi is in third place with 49.93 lakh old vehicles. Surprisingly, the numbers are much lower in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Ministry of Road Transport has digitised the data of such vehicles across most parts of India. The government will impose a green tax on old vehicles to protect the environment and curb pollution.
In one of the biggest cases of bulk selling globally, there were large block trades with Goldman Sachs executing sales worth $10 billion on behalf of an unnamed client. This resulted in shares of Viacom CBS and Discovery falling over 25% on Friday. According to Bloomberg, Goldman sold nearly $7 billion worth of shares of Baidu and Tencent with these stocks dropping 33% and 48% respectively. It is not known if this has to do with US proposal to delist Chinese stocks. In another report, Morgan Stanley also sold a total of $8 billion worth of shares on Friday, creating fear that it could be forced deleveraging by clients.
Adani Transmission signed a deal with Essel Infra for the acquisition of the Warora-Kurnool Transmission at an enterprise valuation of Rs.3,370 crore. While regulatory approval has already been obtained, what remains is the consent of lenders. This will take the cumulative network of Adani Transmission to 17,200 ckt km, of which 12,350 ckt km is operational and the balance is under execution. It will help ATL to boost its pan-India footprint. Essel group has been looking at buyers for these infrastructure projects after the group fell into deep financial stress. The project was awarded via competitive bidding on a BOOM basis.
Most analysts and economists are almost unanimous that RBI would maintain the status quo on rates and its monetary stance when it announces its next monetary policy on 07 April. Considering the uncertainty created by the second wave of the virus, the RBI may choose to wait longer before arriving at a decision. Dun & Bradstreet pointed out that long-term yields were hardening, leading to rising in borrowing costs. Hence, the RBI had to manage rising inflationary pressures, yet keep borrowing costs in check. With inflation well within the 6% comfort zone of the RBI, there may not be a need to tinker with rates. The RBI may, however, keep a hawk-eye on core inflation, which has been moving up relentlessly. UBS has opined that RBI would keep rates low and liquidity comfortable to see its massive borrowing program through.
