India retail inflation came in marginally lower at 4.75% for May 2024, compared to 4.83% in April. While food inflation was flat and oil inflation was tad higher, the downside push came from core inflation which fell further to 2.97%. The RBI target for headline inflation is 4.00%, so it is still 75 bps away. In the food basket, pressure came from vegetables and pulses. On Wednesday, the MOSPI also reported the April 2024 IIP numbers, which came in at 4.98%, despite a higher base. This is lower than the revised March IIP.
Late on Wednesday, the US announced its monetary policy, holding rates at a 23-year high range of 5.25%-5.50%. The one change was that Fed has now guided for just 1 more rate cut in the current year; contrary to the original Fed guidance of 3 rate cuts and the CME Fedwatch expectations of two rate cuts in 2024. This would be interpreted as a hawkish signal and this is likely to push up the bond yields in the US and also the dollar index. US consumer inflation for May 2024 came in flat, and is 130 bps above the 2% target.
360-One Wealth Management, part of the Indiainfoline group, has acquired ET Money for a sum of Rs366 crore to complete its wealth management product suite. ET Money has about 9 lakh transacting clients and 1 lakh revenue generating users. The acquisition will be done partly in cash and partly via share swap. ET Money tracks an overall AUM of Rs70,000 crore, while 360-One is the largest wealth player in India. The ET Money platform has gross monthly sales of Rs1,200 crore with SIPs of Rs450 crore every month.
Bain Capital may look to exit L&T Finance through block deal sales on Thursday. The floor price for the sale has been set at Rs169.17, which is a small discount to the last closing price. Bain Capital plans to take a total exit from L&T Finance. The 3.54% stake held by Bain and its associate companies is value in the market at Rs1,500 crore. BNP Paribas is acting as the advisor to the deal. It may be recollected that back in September 2023, Bain Capital had sold 2.82% stake in L&T Finance for a consideration of Rs810 crore.
Tira, the retail fashion arm of Reliance Retail, has the portfolio of Mira Kapoor, Akind. Mira Kapoor, wife of Shahid Kapoor, runs her proprietary skincare brand. This brand was unveiled at Tira’s flagship store in Jio World Drive. The skincare brand is based on the philosophy that everyone has a unique skin and so they have 3 categories viz. BUILD, BALANCE, and DEFENCE ranges. In the last few years, Reliance Retail has been lapping up a number of well established fashion and beauty brands to expand its portfolio base.
The old battle between the telecom companies and the OTT players is back with the telecom companies demanding revenue share from OTT for high data traffic. These demands were put forward to Jyotiraditya Scindia, who has just taken over as the Telecom minister. Telcos are demanding a fair share network usage policy, such that large traffic generators share some of the profits with telcos in tune with the extent to which they dominate bandwidth usage. However, for now, OTT regulations are outside Telecom ministry.
Nestle had decided to pay royalty at the extant rates of 4.5% to its Swiss parent, after more than 57% of the shareholders of Nestle India had rejected the proposal by Nestle India to hike the payment of royalty to the parent to 5.25%. If that proposal had gone through, Nestle would have ended up paying the highest royalty to an international parent, among the leading FMCG companies in India. The company has also decided to postpone the date of its AGM to July 06, 2024; where the final dividend decision will be taken. The Finance Industry Development Council, the representative body for non-bank lenders has asked the RBI to review its proposal that lenders make provisions for infrastructure project loans. In May 2024, RBI had proposed that all non-bank lenders set aside 5% of the total loan amount for infrastructure projects as provision during the construction phase, due to the high level of risk involved. The suggestion coming is that such provisions should be limited only to infra projects, where date of commencement is extended.