Vodafone Idea reported net loss of Rs.7,023 crore for the Mar-21 quarter. This is narrower than the loss of Rs.11,644 in the Mar-20 quarter but wider than Rs.4,532 crore in the sequential quarter. For FY21, Vodafone reported net loss of Rs.44,233 core on top of a loss of Rs.73,878 crore in FY20. In short, the company has admitted that it is in dire straits and its very ability to sustain as a going concern has been threatened as access to funds had been limited. VI is owned by Vodafone PLC and Aditya Birla Group.
India may have received nearly 10% excess rainfall in the month of June, but the southwest monsoon continues to elude large swathes of north India. This was revealed by IMD in their June-end briefing. IMD confirmed that there was no progress in the southwest monsoon after 19 June and was currently stuck in the Barmer-Bhilwara region of Rajasthan. This is rather surprising as the monsoons had set in over Kerala on schedule on 03 June. While North East is seeing heavy rains, Northwest is going through a dry spell.
SpiceJet reported net loss of Rs.235 crore in Mar-21 quarter. This is wider than the sequential loss of Rs.53 crore. Like other airlines, SpiceJet has also been hit by stringent travel restrictions in view of COVID 2.0. On a yoy basis, the loss is lower to Rs.807 crore loss reported in the Mar-20 quarter. SpiceJet recorded net loss of Rs.998 crore for the full year FY21 as empty flights are a major challenge for airlines. While passenger traffic plunged, the good news was that cargo operations grew 514% with 15% profit margin.
India’s current account balance for the quarter to March 2021 showed a 1% deficit as a share of GDP. However, India ended the full FY21 with a small current account surplus of 0.9%, thanks to the robust current account surplus reported in the first two quarters of FY21. In the Dec-20 quarter, the current account deficit had dipped to -0.3% of GDP, on the back of a pick-up in GDP. The FY21 current account surplus of 0.9% contrasts with the FY20 current account deficit of -0.9%. Gold imports pressured CAB.
PNC Infratech stock was up 9% on 30 June at Rs.284 on the back of heavy volumes. The stock has gained nearly 15% in just 2 trading sessions. PNC has just disclosed that it had a strong order book position of nearly Rs.11,600 crore. PNC Infratech operates largely in the business of roads and highways construction. This does not include the 2 recent EPC road projects and 7 EPC water projects, which would take the full order book to Rs.16,600 crore. Actually, Road EPC projects constitute nearly 89% of its order book.
Investors in the stock market looking seriously at REITs could be in for a positive surprise. Now, India’s largest REIT, Embassy Office Parks, could start trading with a lower lot size where the size is likely to be reduced from 200 units to just 1 unit. This was one of the announcements made by SEBI to encourage greater retail participation in the REITs segment. SEBI had proposed a similar exercise for INVITs also. The Embassy REITs had listed in 2019 and had delivered resilient performance consistently for eight quarters.
In a rather surprising move, Brazil suspended the contract for 20 million doses of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin valued at $320 million. This follows allegations over irregularities in procurement and pricing. While the cancellation was recommended by the Comptroller General of the Union, President Bolsonaro of Brazil refuted allegations as false and misleading. He denied any irregularities in the process. The controversy erupted after Brazil paid a price of $15 per dose for Covaxin against the original price quote of $1.34.
JSW Steel proposes to invest Rs.25,115 crore by FY25 to ramp up annual steel capacity to 37.5 MT. This was disclosed by Sajjan Jindal in a letter to shareholders. JSW Steel has already invested Rs.48,000 crore into capacity augmentation in the last 3 years. This will take the total expansion driven investment in 5 years to Rs.73,115 crore. JSW Steel has current crude steel capacity of 18 MT of which 12.5 MT is for flats and 5.5 MT is for longs. As part of the expansion, Jindal will add another 7.5 MTPA at Vijayanagar plant.