Ambuja Cements, part of the Adani group, has acquired Penna Cements for a consideration of Rs10,422 crore. This is their third acquisition since Ambuja and ACC were taken over by Adani. The Ambuja / ACC combine currently has cement capacity of 75 million tonnes per annum (MTPA), which will grow to 89 MTPA post the acquisition. The deal will be closed in the next 3 months. In the first loss of FY24, Penna Cements had reported an EBITDA loss of Rs11 crore and its last attempt at an IPO in year 2019 had failed.
Vodafone Idea plans to offer stake worth Rs2,458 crore to Nokia and Ericsson. These shares will be offered to these two companies in lieu of their dues owed by Vodafone Idea. This will be done via preferential offer of 102.70 crore shares to Nokia and 63.37 crore shares to Ericsson. At an assumed market price of Rs14.80 per share, the Nokia stake will be worth Rs1,520 crore and the Ericsson stake will be worth Rs938 crore. Post this deal, Aditya Birla group and Vodafone PLC will hold 37.3% stake and the centre 23.2%.
The rural business book of L&T Finance has touched a level of Rs25,000 crore and this business has been growing at around 26% CAGR in the last 3 years. Its big focus now is the micro loan against property (LAP) business, where loans are given for business against hypothecation of their property. The rural portfolio of L&T Finance accounts for 30% of its loan book of Rs80,000 crore. The company has over 10,000 field staff handling the business and the focus has been on customer connect, selection and credit discipline.
Zepto plans to raise $650 million in a pre-IPO round from new and existing investors. Zepto is one of the leading quick commerce players in India and is valued at $3.5 billion as of now. The pre-IPO funding round is likely to be led by Nexus Venture Partners and Glade Brook Capital apart from some new investors like DST Global and Avenir Growth. The funds will be used to expand the footprint of Zepto into new cities. The valuation of Zepto has more than doubled in last 1 year since its previous funding round last August.
According to a report by CreditSights, there could be some short concerns for Tata Steel in its UK business if the Labour Party was to come to power in the upcoming elections. It could also mean that the GBP 500 million support promised by the UK government may not materialize or could get delayed. In that case, even the Dutch government support for the green transition could be much lower. The funding deal is at an advanced stage and the Tata Steel managed is expecting the deal to be signed in next couple of weeks.
Jio Platforms has got approval from the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation centre to launch SATCOM services in India. This is amidst global players like Starlink owned by Elon Musk and the Amazon Project Kuiper still awaiting regulatory clearances. The only other company to get approval for SATCOM services in India is the Bharti backed Eutelsat One Web. Jio will launch its SATCOM services in India after it gets clearances from SES, the Luxembourg based SATCOM player and could open a new front.
The key message coming from the CPI inflation numbers in India is that while headline inflation is down by 8 bps, the food inflation remains flat. That is largely on account of pressure on pulses and vegetables, both showing double-digit inflation for more than a year now. One thing holding back the food basket was the deflation in edible oils. Recent weeks saw a spike in the price of potatoes and tomatoes due to supply concerns. A lot of the short term concerns on food prices are on account of the intense heat wave in India.
The 53rd meeting of the GST Council is scheduled to be held on June 22, 2024 and it is likely to address some very important issues. The current GST Council meeting is likely to see substantive progress in the taxation of online gaming services as well as mandatory implementation of input services distribution or ISD provisions. GST collections in FY25 have been very strong in the first two months and hold the promise of higher overall revenues this year. While imports did slow last year, domestic transactions grew by 15%.
