PhonePe, the digital payment brand owned by Wal-Mart Inc, plans to raise $1 billion from General Atlantic and other existing investors like Tiger Global, Qatar Investment Authority and Microsoft. The funding game has become a lot tighter for start-ups. PhonePe is likely to be valued at close to $13 billion, making it thrice as valuable as Paytm. Global digital payment market is likely to grow to $10 trillion in the next few years. While PhonePe dominates the payment market in India, Google Pay is racing close on its heels.
The USFDA listed Sun Pharma facility in Halol, Gujarat under import alert. It resulted in a 2.5% fall in the price of the stock. The import alert is expected to impact the top line by 2-3% and the EBITDA by 5-6%. This import alert means that all future shipments of products manufactured at Halol facility are subject to refusal of admission to the US market until the facility becomes compliant with cGMP standards. However, it has excluded 14 products from the import alert. FDA had issued 10 observations on the facility in May.
Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) has acquired Monnet Power Company for Rs410 crore, through the insolvency route of the NCLT. Monnet also has a 1050 MW under-construction power plant in Odisha’s Angul. The full amount has already been paid. Monnet had been admitted to CIRP in 2019 with bank debt of Rs3,819 crore. The Monnet Power plant is proposed to be used by JSPL for its captive usage. The Monnet Power Plant is situated close to JSPL Angul steel plant and the Utkal coal blocks of JSPL, to reduce energy costs.
Tata Group will begin manufacturing semiconductors in India in the next few years as revealed by the Tata Sons chairman, N Chandrasekaran. This is likely to integrate India into the global chip supply chain. The timing is likely to help India fill up the gaps left by China. The manufacture of semiconductors will be taken up under the Tata Electronics banner. The market size is pegged at $1 trillion. He confirmed that the Tata group may explore launching an upstream chip fabrication platform. Chips are highly capital intensive.
NTPC plans to build a massive nuclear fleet to assist the shift away from coal and help curb emissions to net-zero by 2070. NTPC will install up to 30 GW nuclear capacity by 2040. India has 22 operational reactors with about 6.8 GW capacity currently. Out of NTPC’s current power fleet of 70 GW, more than 80% is coal-fired thermal power. NTPC will continue to pursue mega nuclear projects in JV with NPCIL. The company will focus on building SMRs of 100 MW to 300 MW capacity. Safety would still be the driving consideration.
Reliance General Insurance has sought Rs600 crore capital infusion from parent, Reliance Capital, to grow its business in line with peers. The Committee of Creditors (COC) will discuss the capital infusion request. Reliance Capital is currently under resolution process under IBC and has received bids from Oaktree, Piramal, Hinduja and Torrent Groups. The infusion will enhance RGIC’s solvency ratio from 155% to 175%. The borderline solvency was making corporates wary. RGIC employs 7,000 and has 70 lakh customers.
HDFC Bank confirmed that it had filed petition with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to approve the proposed merger with HDFC Ltd. The composite scheme of amalgamation includes HDFC Investments and HDFC Holdings into HDFC Ltd. The scheme of amalgamation will also subsequently entail the merger of HDFC Ltd into HDFC Bank Ltd. It may be recollected that on 04th April 2022, the merger of HDFC Ltd into HDFC Bank in a $40 billion deal had been announced. The entire merger process will take 2 years.
According to the latest Motilal Oswal Wealth Creator study, Reliance Industries emerged as the biggest wealth creator during the period 2017-22. That also coincides with the mega growth of RIL in its digital and retail franchises. Reliance has been ranked No.1 for 9 out of the last 16 five year studies. TCS, Infosys, HDFC Bank and Bajaj Finance were the other notable wealth creators. In last 5 years, Adani Transmission delivered the best five-year CAGR returns of 106%, followed by Tanla Platforms and Adani Enterprises Ltd.