SBI acquired a minority stake in JSW Cement with an investment of Rs.100 crore via CCPS. The conversion of CCPS into equity will be linked to the company’s future business performance. The capital infusion by SBI will help JSW Cement expand its cement capacity from 14 MTPA to 25 MTPA. Recently, Apollo Global and Synergy Metals had also picked up a stake in JSW Cement. The JSW statement was quite clear that they looked to leverage the experience and expertise of SBI, ahead of their proposed IPO in next one year.
Shares of Piramal Enterprises surged 4% after its Piramal Pharma unit announced it had acquired 27.78% stake in Yapan Bio. Now Yapan Bio is a CDMO company focusing on contract process development and manufacturing. It is located at the Genome valley in Hyderabad. The total stake buy is worth Rs.102 crore. It adds to Piramal Pharma’s existing capabilities in development and manufacturing of large molecules for human clinical trials. Within the CDMO segment, Biologics remains the fastest growing segment in CDMO.
The Shareholders of MOIL approved the buy back over 3.38 crore shares of MOIL with record date on 31-December. In all, MOIL will buy back 3,38,42,668 equity share at Rs.205 per share for cash having an overall value of Rs.693.77 crore. This buyback represents nearly 14.26% of the total number of shares in the paid-up share capital of MOIL. The PSU company, MOIL, comes under the purview of Ministry of Steel. MOIL is India’s largest manganese ore mining company and contributes 40% of the total mining revenues.
Adani Enterprises was up 2% after it announced it had secured the contract to implement the 3 key stretches of the greenfield Ganga Expressway. The Ganga Expressway will entail a total investment outlay of Rs.17,085 crore and will be the longest expressway under the PPP route. The project will have a construction period of 3 years and concession shall be 30 years. Adani now has 13 projects in its roads portfolio covering 5,000 KM and asset value in excess of Rs.35,000 crore as part of Bharat Mala project.
Snapdeal, which is backed by Softbank of Japan, filed its DRHP to raise Rs.1,250 crore via fresh issue and offer 30,769,600 equity shares. However, the two founding promoters viz. Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal will not be selling any of their stock in the IPO. Selling shareholders in the IPO will include SoftBank, Foxconn, Myriad Opportunities, Madison India, Sequoia Capital and Ontario Teacher’s Pension Fund. Snapdeal will utilize the proceeds of the fresh issue to fund growth and expand logistics capabilities.
The Indian rupee has been among Asia’s worst-performing currencies recently, with foreign funds selling heavily in Indian stocks. The $4 billion outflow by FPIs has resulted in the INR weakening by 2.2%. A slew of global brokers like Nomura, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs lower their outlook for Indian equities citing lofty valuations. The recent hawkishness by the Fed and the spreading Omicron variant has also put pressure on the rupee. Ironically, other Asian EMs have been getting consistent FPI flows in this month.
Axis Bank has reportedly emerged as the top bidder to buy Citi’s consumer banking business. It may be recollected that in Apr-21, Citibank had announced plans to exit consumer banking business in India as part of its global strategy. In the case of Citi, the consumer banking business encompasses credit cards, retail banking, home loans and wealth management. The valuation for the business may be in the vicinity of $2 billion. Citi is one of the oldest banks in India, since 1902, and had started consumer banking in 1985.
Shree Cement will set up a Rs.1,500 crore cement plant in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh It will be a Greenfield Cement plant in Guntur. Shree Cements is the second largest cement manufacturer in India in terms of cement manufacturing capacity after Ultratech. This will be their first plant in the state of AP and the project will be completed in 24 months. Shree reported Rs.578 crore profit in the Sep-21 quarter while revenues in the quarter stood at Rs.3,206 crore. This will be the tenth state for cement presence.