Bajaj Finserv got regulatory license to commence mutual fund business. Bajaj Finserv AMC will be the investment manager and soon plans to start originating equity, debt and hybrid funds. It plans to issue active and passive funds in the Indian market. For the month of January 2023, Indian equity funds saw net inflows of Rs12,547 crore, a jump of nearly 72% on a MOM basis. Bajaj Finserv has appointed Nimesh Chandan as the CIO of the fund. Bajaj Finserv is currently offering NBFC services and insurance products.
Overall passenger vehicle dispatches crossed 335,000 units in February 2023 amidst heavy demand. There were robust numbers reported by Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata Motors and M&M. Maruti saw domestic dispatches up 1% at 155,114 units, largely led by the compact and the SUV segment. The higher interest rates have only had a marginal impact on auto demand. Maruti has an order backlog of 3.69 lakh units. Hyundai sales grew 7%, M&M grew 10% and Tata Motors grew 7.5%. Bajaj Auto took a hit on exports.
According to a report by Reuters, the Adani Group had secured a $3 billion loan from a sovereign wealth fund and that could even go up to $5 billion. However, Adani group has not confirmed any such news. This was part of a memo circulated to institutions by the company during a global roadshow. Adani group shares remained in the green for the second day in succession. The funding will boost the coffers of the group after it saw nearly $140 billion of market being wiped out since release of the Hindenburg report.
Coal India Ltd, India’s government owned coal mining monopoly, reported a robust 14.3% growth in coal production at 619.7 million tonnes in the first 11 months of FY23. With this performance, CIL is on target to achieve its enhanced production target of 700 million tonnes for FY23. Despite February being a short month, CIL achieved 68.8 million tonnes of coal output, an all-time February record. Three CIL subsidiaries viz. Bharat Coking Coal, Northern Coalfields and Mahanadi Coalfields; surpassed annual off-take targets.
Tata Power Renewable Energy Ltd (TPREL), a unit of Tata Power, has got an investment of Rs2,000 crore from Green Forest New Energies against allotment of 20 crore preference shares. These preference shares will be in the form of Compulsorily Convertible Preference Shares (CCPS) with face value of Rs100, issued on preferential basis to Green Forest. This takes Green Forest’s total investment in TPREL to Rs4,000 and post the CCPS conversion, they will hold 11.43% in TPREL. This will fund TPREL’s aggressive growth plans.
The high profile deal of Tata group taking a majority stake in Bisleri International has stalled on valuation differences. The owners of Bisleri were looking for $1 billion from the deal, but the Tata group was not willing to play ball at such steep valuations. However, insiders have confirmed that these are valuation disagreements and the deal was still open. Bisleri has a 60% share in India’s bottled mineral water market. Tata group is looking at Bisleri to expand its bottled water portfolio to the lucrative mid-market segment.
After 8 days of negative closing on the Nifty, the month of March began with a positive close. Metals, IT, banking, energy and capital goods were the major gainers on 01st March. The markets were buoyed by solid PMI data, strong Chinese manufacturing data and hopes that Adani group may get the necessary funding. Sensex surged 449 points to 59,411, while Nifty surged by 147 points to 17,451. SBI and Axis Bank were the big drivers of the rally while IT stocks also joined the rally. Q3FY23 GDP had been tepid at 4.4%.
GST collections for February came in at Rs1.49 trillion, although this pertains to economic activity in the month of January 2023. That is a growth of 12% yoy. Out of the total GST collections; CGST was Rs27,662 crore, SGST Rs34,915 crore, IGST Rs75,069 crore and record cess collections of Rs11,931 crore. February saw revenues from import of goods 6% higher while revenues from domestic transaction were 15% higher yoy. For FY23, government aims to collect Rs8.54 lakh crore as net GST, after devolvement and refunds.