Reliance Industries Jio Infocomm raised $5 billion via foreign currency loans. This is the largest syndicated loan in India’s corporate history. RIL raised $3 billion from 55 banks while Reliance Jio Infocomm got $2 billion from 18 banks. Reliance will deploy the funds for capex while Jio Infocomm will invest in its pan-India 5G network rollout. Market experts contended that the response was much better than expected. The last major offshore borrowing by RIL was the $1.45 billion dual-currency financing completed in 2020.
L&T rallied to Rs2,229 on Wednesday after the company announced mega orders for its hydrocarbon business division. The mega project is said to be valued at Rs7,000 crore plus. The company is a leading company based out of the Middle East. The scope includes EPC and installation for various new offshore facilities and integration with existing installations. Currently, infrastructure segment contributes 45% to consolidated revenues followed by services at 30%. L&T has also been divesting its non-core businesses.
For the March quarter, Paytm report gross merchandise value (GMV) 40% higher at Rs3.62 trillion or nearly $44 billion. The company also touched a new milestone of 6.8 million devices deployed. Soundbox and POS machines continued to witness frenetic growth. Paytm has also been driving user engagement through its super-app. Average monthly transacting users (MTU) stood at 90 million; up 27%. Loans given out surged 82% to 11.9 million. The stock of Paytm has taken support after a big crash post IPO listing.
Reliance Retail appointed former Amul CEO, R S Sodhi, to head the grocery vertical. Reliance is betting big on making fruits and vegetables available at reasonable prices by managing supply chain more effectively. RRVL also launched the Campa Cola brand and is planning a big foray into FMCG space. Sodhi was with Amul for over 41 years and had stepped down earlier this year. Reliance Retail will look to replicate the milk procurement model of Amul for its immunity-boosting milk in the turmeric, ginger, and tulsi variants.
The uncertainty in the global market and the banking crisis globally is pushing gold prices higher. Global spot gold prices have crossed the psychological $2,000/oz mark while in India the MCX gold price is above Rs61,000/10 grams. Weak US jobs data combined with a weakening of the US dollar index has helped the gold rally. But the big trigger is the banking crisis with Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan warning that the global banking crisis was far from over. Fed is also expected to go slow on rate hikes and that is boosting gold.
Adani Ports recorded 9.5% growth in port cargo volume for FY23. Adani Ports registered 339 MMT in FY23 with monthly cargo volumes of 32 MMT in March 2023 alone. Mundra has been clearly beating its rivals and continues to be the largest port in India in terms of volumes handled. The overall container volumes handled by Adani Ports in FY23 jumped 5% to 8.6 MTUs. Its logistics business also had a record year with container rakes handling 5 lakh TEUs. Adani Ports also recently completed the acquisition of Karaikal Port.
A long time veteran of the energy sector, J P Chalasani, will take over as the CEO of Suzlon Energy. Chalasani is currently the CEO of Punj Lloyd but had a long previous stint with the ADAG group and also with NTPC prior to that. Chalasani had taken over as the CEO of Reliance Power in 2008. He had led the expansion of Reliance Power to a 30,000 MW company by 2013. In 2014, he had taken over as the CEO of Punj Lloyd to handle the energy and defence business. Chalasani replaces Ashwani Kumar who resigned.
LIC recorded stock market gains of Rs65,594 crore from the top 10 listed companies. These 10 stocks make up 50% of the LIC equity portfolio. LIC has typically been a contrarian buyer in the Indian markets, which it could afford to do because of its size. LIC was accumulating shares when others were selling. LIC made big gains on its holdings in Reliance, ITC, TCS, ICICI Bank, Infosys, SBI, L&T and HDFC Bank. LIC holdings in the top 10 stocks are expected to be close to Rs465,000 crore, out of total equity portfolio of Rs9 trillion.
