The proposal to merge HDFC and HDFC Bank has been approved by the NSE and the BSE. This NOC is the first step and other approvals from the RBI, SEBI, CCI and the NCLT are still pending. In addition, both HDFC and HDFC Bank will also have to seek the approval of their shareholders and creditors. The merger will create a behemoth with a combined asset base of Rs18 trillion. Post the deal, the shares of HDFC Ltd will be extinguished and the shareholders of HDFC Ltd will hold 41% of HDFC Bank. The swap ratio is 42:25.
Vedanta expects its semiconductor business to generate annual sales of $3.5 billion, of which 30% will come from chip exports. Foxconn will be the JV partner for Vedanta for this venture. Vedanta has made the most aggressive investment plan with an outlay of $20 billion to build chips in India. This gels with India’s vision to manufacture 1 billion smartphones, 15 million TV sets and 24 million notebooks annually by 2030 for domestic use. To begin with, Vedanta will focus on the 28 nm tried and tested chip technology.
With fears of recession growing, the Indian IT sector is likely to see a slowdown in tech spending amidst steep chances of a recession. These risks may be partially offset for the Indian IT industry by a weak rupee. The IT results season begins with TCS on 08th July, but TCS does not provide guidance. But, the markets will look at the business outlook painted by TCS to understand if there are strains in tech spending. Most analysts are already trimming their EPS growth forecasts for the first quarter of FY23 on
IT spend concerns.
The recent windfall tax on oil produced within India plus tax on fuel exports will offset nearly 75% of the revenue lost by the state due to excise duty cuts on petrol and diesel. Last week, the centre slapped a tax of Rs6 per litre on export of petrol and ATF and Rs13 per litre on export of diesel. In addition, government also imposed a windfall tax of Rs23,250 per tonne on domestically produced crude oil. This will fetch the government Rs69,000 crore. In April and May 2022, India exported 2.5 MT of petrol and 5.7 MT of diesel.
The market borrowing by state governments in the Jul-Sep quarter has been pegged at Rs2.12 trillion. RBI will ensure that the state bond auctions are conducted in a non-disruptive manner in the light of the tough market conditions. State governments announced market borrowing worth Rs1.90 trillion in June 2022 quarter. However, actual bond sales were lower, due to states sitting on high cash balances. The normal practice is state governments enhance borrowing plans in the second half due to tepid central borrowings.
IndusInd Bank recorded 18% growth in net advances to Rs249,541 crore in Q1FY23. Net advances were also up by just about 4% in the quarter. Total deposits of IndusInd were up 13% at Rs303,094 crore. The bank’s CASA (current and savings accounts) ratio stood at 43.2% in Q1FY23. For FY23, IndusInd will target retail deposits growth and also foresees a material reduction in credit costs to around 1.5%. IndusInd has a network of 2,265 banking outlets and 2,767 onsite and offsite ATMs. The client base
stood at 32 million.
Sanjay Pandey, former Mumbai police commissioner, was summoned by the ED to appear on 05th July. Pandey had already retired from service as on 30th June. Pandey ran a private IT audit firm which had bagged the contract to audit colocation facilities of NSE. His firm was found to be guilty of not flagging any of the major risks. The NSE colocation facility allows brokers to place servers in the data centre of the stock exchange for low latency execution. However, some brokers used dark fibre illegally to gain an edge.
There was a sharp 26% fall in net leasing of office space in the June 202 quarter. This was based on a survey conducted by JLL across 7 major cities. The leasing demand fell from 11.55 million SFT to just 8.5 million SFT on yoy basis. The fall was almost similar on a sequential basis too. While Bengaluru saw a rise in leasing space demand, there was a fall in net leasing demand across Chennai, Delhi/NCR and Hyderabad while Kolkata saw an increase. The lucrative Mumbai market saw an 8% fall in net leasing
demand in Q1.