Easy Trip IPO, which is entirely an offer for sale, got 2.3 times subscribed at the end of Day-1. The issue opened on 08 March and closes on 10 March. Easy Trip received bids for 3.50 crore shares against 1.51 crore shares on offer. Huge interest came from retail investors with nearly 6 times oversubscription. The HNI and QIB bids normally come on the last day only. Easy Trip is selling shares in the price band of Rs.186-187 per share and has already done an anchor placement at the upper end of the band. Retail portion has just 10% allocation and the minimum lot size for retail is 80 shares per lot, subject to maximum of 13 lots.
The pressure on Indian government may be building up in the Cairn Energy case as courts in 5 countries, including the US and UK, have recognized the arbitration award asking India to return $1.4 billion to Cairn Energy PLC. With this ratification, Cairn Energy can start seizing Indian assets in those countries if the Indian government refuses to pay up. Cairn had moved courts in 9 nations to enforce its $1.4 billion arbitral award over retrospective application of capital gains tax on the Cairn India sale to Vedanta PLC. Cairn started the process of registering the award in Singapore, Japan and the UAE also. Once the court recognizes the award, Cairn can then petition to seize Indian government assets such as bank accounts, airplanes and ships in these jurisdictions to recover dues. India plans to file a petition against the award.
Just Dial has been one of the star performers in the last few months and the trend got accentuated on Friday and Monday, as it got locked in 10% upper circuit at Rs.964. Just Dial is India’s leading local search engine and has recently entered into an advertising agreement for IPL. In the last one month, Just Dial has rallied 50%. The big trigger came after it signed an ad deal with Star India as co-presenting sponsor in the IPL, Season-14. There are also talks of the Tata group being in talks with Just Dial to leverage on their online search platform to revive the concept of Tata Yellow Pages it had pioneered in the mid-1980s.
If Jan-21 was a tepid month for life insurers in India in terms of growth, February saw a robust 21% growth with most of the 24 life insurers doing well in terms of new business premiums or NBP. For Feb-21, the NBP came in at Rs.22,425 crore compared to Rs.18,533 crore in Feb-20. The leader of the pack, LIC, recorded 24% growth in NBP to Rs.12,921 crore in Feb-21. This is contrary to the trend in previous months when the NBP of LIC had shrunk. Private insurers saw NBP grow 16% overall to Rs.9505 crore led by SBI Life growing 60%, HDFC Life 20% and Max Life by 30%. ICICI Pru Life saw de-growth in NBP of 19%.
India’s prime minister has a new problem to contend with on International Women’s Day. The Women of Big Bazaar, part of the Future Group, appealed to PM Modi to protect their livelihoods as the legal tussle between Amazon and Future Group appeared to continue interminably. In a letter the women have written that the RIL deal was supposed to protect their jobs but that appeared to have been neutralized by the aggressive posture adopted by Jeff Bezos. The group apparently represents 10,000 women employees and another 200,000 women who indirectly earn by working or supplying to the group.
Indian sugar companies maybe once again having a sweet time but this time it is not about sugar but about ethanol. Stocks like Balrampur Chini, EID Parry, Dwarikesh, Dhampur and Dalmia Bharat rallied by over 7% on Monday. The trigger for the stocks came after PM Modi had announced last week that the target of blending 20% ethanol in petrol would be advanced to year 2025 from 2030 earlier. Ethanol is expected to be one of the biggest drivers for the sugar industry in the coming quarters. Sugar mills, now, have more flexibility with respect to diversion of surplus cane and B-heavy molasses to produce ethanol for blending with petrol. Also, differentiated pricing for ethanol is attractive. While the government has been subsidizing exports of sugar to reduce the domestic surplus, that could not be sustained for long.
