For the month of March 2024, the telecom service providers in India have added 56 lakh new subscribers as per data put out by TRAI. Not surprisingly, Reliance Jio led the way with 36 lakh additions, taking its subscription base to 43.04 crore. Bharti Airtel added an impressive 28 lakh subscribers in March, taking its total subscriber base to 38.54 crore. However, Vodafone Idea continued to lose subscribers, depleting its count by 5.80 lakh subscribers to close at 19.33 crore. BSNL saw its subscriber base slip to 4.80 crore.
In the first shareholder meeting without Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett assured shareholders that the company was in the safe hands of Greg Abel and Ajit Jain. During the year, Berkshire Hathaway trimmed its stake in Apple, although it still remains its biggest holding by a margin. Buffett himself is 93 and it is to be seen, how soon he hands over the reins totally to Abel and Jain. Greg Abel is expected to take over as CEO shortly. For first quarter of 2024, Berkshire Hathaway operating profits were up 39% at $11.2 billion.
The IPO market will see nearly Rs6,393 crore raised in the current week across 3 major companies in the IPO mainboard. This will also be interesting since it is the first time since 2004 when there will be an IPO in the same month as general elections. While the Indegene IPO opens on Monday, the IPOs of Aadhar Housing Finance and TBO Tek will open on Wednesday. Out of the total Rs6,393 crore to be raised through these 3 IPOs, nearly Rs4,233 crore would be by way of OFS, while the balance will be through new issue.
IndusInd International Holdings (IIHL), part of the Hinduja group which recently took over Reliance Capital, now expects the valuation of its BFSI business to triple to $50 billion by the year 2030. IIHL is also looking to raise its stake in IndusInd Bank from the current 15% to 26%. Apart from IndusInd Bank and Reliance Capital, the IIHL India portfolio also includes Invesco Mutual Fund. The group expects IndusInd Bank to be valued at nearly $35 billion by year 2030. IIHL is also on the lookout to buy smaller banks across Europe.
Shashank Bhide, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the RBI, underlined the need to ensure that weights used in CPI inflation align with recent data. According to Bhide, price pressures as evaluated by GDP deflator reflect a much broader set of commodities than CPI. For instance, weightage given to food in the CPI basket is nearly 500 bps higher than the weightage allocated to food in the household expenditure survey. FY24 CPI inflation averaged 5.4%, while GDP deflator averaged just 1.5%.
Belstar Microfinance, a subsidiary of Muthoot Finance, filed draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI for its proposed IPO of around Rs1,300 crore. The IPO will comprise of a fresh issue of Rs1,000 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs300 crore. Muthoot Finance, holds 66.13% stake in Belstar Microfinance. The proceeds of the fresh issuance, to the tune of Rs760 crore, will be allocated towards future capital needs and onward lending ICICI Securities, Axis Capital, HDFC Bank, and SBI Capital Markets are the IPO BRLMs.
In an interesting move, JP Morgan has upgraded Kotak Mahindra Bank to overweight from neutral; at a time when most brokers and global investors have been downgrading Kotak. JP Morgan cited supportive valuations post the RBI actions for the reason and raised the target price to Rs2070, marking a 34% upside from current levels. JPM has also stated that the impact of the RBI action on FY25 and FY26 numbers will be minimal. For the March quarter and the full year FY24, Kotak Bank had just reported stellar numbers.
JSW Infrastructure, the ports franchise of the JSW Group, earmarked an investment of Rs30,000 crore for capex up to 2030. The outlay will be for increasing port-handling capacities, hiking capacity utilization and for expansion plans. JSW Infra plans to increase the port-handling capacity to 400 MTPA by 2030 and capacity utilization to 80% by 2027. Simultaneously, JSW Infra will also look for inorganic growth. Capacity will first move to 260 MTPA by 2027 and later to 400 MTPA by 2030. It will be funded by internal accruals.
