The high profile supply chain company, Delhivery, has got SEBI approval to go ahead with its proposed IPO worth Rs.7,460 crore. The IPO will comprise of a fresh issuance of Rs.5,000 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of Rs.2,460 crore. Among early investors divesting their stake in Delhivery will be big ticket PE names like Carlyle Group and SoftBank. While an arm of Carlyle will offload shares worth Rs.920 crore, a Softbank unit will offload shares worth Rs.750 crore. Proceeds will be used to fund its organic and inorganic growth.
Reliance Retail Ventures acquired 54% in Addverb Technologies for $132 million; around Rs.983 crore. Addverb will use the fund infusion to set up one of the biggest robotic manufacturing facilities in Noida near Delhi. RRVL already happens to be a client of Addverb Technologies for setting up automated JioMart warehouses. This deal gives Addverb Tech a valuation of Rs.2,000 crore. The company plans to diversify its global revenue stream to 50%. Addverb has subsidiaries across 4 countries, including one in the US.
Bajaj Finance reported 85% higher net profits at Rs.2,125 crore for the Dec-21 quarter. Its net interest income or NII was up 40% yoy at Rs.6,000 crore. Gross NPAs and Net NPAs stood at levels of 1.73% and 0.78% respectively. This indicates a sharp fall from levels of 2.45% and 1.10% respectively a year ago. The total assets under management (AUM) of Bajaj Finance grew 26% to Rs.181,500 crore. Despite a tough quarter, Bajaj Finance managed to expand its active client list to 5.55 crore. It is among the MCAP top-10.
Crude oil prices are back at a 7-year high as Brent crossed $87/bbl, a level last seen way back in 2014. Meanwhile, there was rising geopolitical tensions intensified in the Middle East hinting at a possible disruption of supply lines. Goldman Sachs has already pegged the price of Brent Crude at above $100/bbl in the next 2 quarters, with a 2023 forecast for Brent at $105/bbl. The price of crude has risen by 26% since the start of December 2021. OPEC has been easing on output cuts imposed in 2020 on COVID fears.
Tata Motors plans to hike prices of its passenger vehicles by around 0.9% on a weighted average basis. This is to partially offset the impact of rising input costs. Tata Motors admitted that the company was absorbing significant portion of the increased costs but was impelled to pass on some of the input cost spike to the end user. Auto companies across the board, starting with Maruti Suzuki, have been raising prices aggressively. Maruti hiked prices of cars thrice in 2021 and has already hiked prices once in Jan-22.
Indraprastha Gas hit a new 52-week low at Rs 453.75 on 18th January. The stock has been falling sharply in the last few weeks on concerns over the aggressive influx of electric vehicles into Delhi. IGL supplies compressed natural gas (CNG) to transport sector and piped natural gas (PNG) for domestic industrial and commercial use in Delhi and NCR. In the last 1 month, IGL fell 8% while the Sensex was up 7%. Delhi wants to make EVs mandatory for ride aggregators and delivery services and that could badly dent IGL demand.
Landmark Cars, one of the leading car dealerships in India, has filed DRHP with SEBI for its proposed IPO. Landmark plans to raise Rs.750 crore from the IPO market. This will only be the second listed auto dealer, the first being Competent Automobiles, which is a major dealer for Maruti Suzuki. Private equity player, TPG, is likely to cut its stake in Landmark Cars as part of the OFS portion. Landmark auto dealership is present in 29 cities across Gujarat, West Bengal, Maharashtra Madhya Pradesh, Delhi as well as Punjab.
SEBI is currently reviewing the definition of free float and whether it should continue with the idea of minimum public shareholding in its current form. Free float indicates shares available for trading. The whole idea of free float is to draw a line between controlling shareholders and investors. However, in many of the recent digital IPOs, companies are listed with no identifiable promoters. In such cases, the concept of free float becomes pointless. One option is to exclude institutional holdings from free float.