SBI central board will shortly consider raising up to $2 billion via issue of bonds in the current fiscal year. The decision is expected in the meeting of the Central Board scheduled on 28 April. The committee will take a call on whether the funds should be raised and whether it should be raised in a single tranche or in multiple tranches. The proposal is to raise through the issue of senior unsecured notes and most likely denominated in US dollars. This will be part of SBI’s aggressive war chest creation to lend post-COVID.
Bajaj Finance reported 42% bounce in net profit at Rs.1,347 crore on consolidated basis for Mar-21 quarter. Net profits were at Rs.948 crore during the Mar-20 quarter. New loans booked fell to 54.7 lakhs compared to 60.3 lakhs in the Mar-20 quarter. Even the net interest income or NII was down 1% at Rs.4,659 crore in the Mar-21 quarter. Its gross NPAs were slightly higher at 1.79% compared to 1.61% in the Mar-20 quarter. Net NPAs were also higher on a yoy basis. There was a spike in loan losses in FY21.
Bharti Airtel and Reliance are almost at par in terms of active mobile subscriptions. This, according to CRISIL, almost rules out any tariff hike for the time being. Jio has 33.7% share of active subscriber base compared to 33.6% for Airtel. Both the telecom companies are currently working to target the 30 crore non-4G subscribers to onboard them on to the 4G platform. Jio recently launched JioPhone 2021 giving handsets along with a 4G connection for the entry level audience. ARPUs remain a challenge for telcos.
Axis Bank returned to the black recording net profit of Rs.2,677 crore in the Mar-21 quarter on the back of a sharp fall in loan loss provisions. This contrasts with a net loss of Rs.1,388 crore in the Mar-20 quarter.
The net interest income or NII was up 11% at Rs.7,555 crore even as the NIMs marginally expanded by 2 bps at 3.53% in the Mar-21 quarter. Gross slippages in the Mar-21 quarter stood at Rs.5,285 crore compared to Rs.3,920 crore in the Mar-20 quarter. GNPAs fell to 3.70% of gross advances from 4.86%.
SP group has filed a review petition against the Supreme Court order calling it a miscarriage of justice. The SP group has cautioned that this could have wider ramifications for statutory safeguards enshrined in the Companies Act 2013. The SP group counsel noted that the 26-Mar judgement eroded the standards of governance expected. A bench headed by Justice Bobde set aside the NCLAT order reinstating Mistry as chairman of Tata Sons. SP has continued to harp on the protection of interests of minority shareholders.
On Tuesday 27 April, the metal stocks were on a virtual roll with names like NALCO, Hindalco, Welspun Corp, and Tata Steel rallying up to 6%. Nifty Metal index surged 4.6% during the day. This was at a time when the benchmark Nifty was up just about 0.7%. The metals index has rallied 19% in the last 2 months when the Nifty was almost flat. There has been a sharp upsurge in domestic and international demand for metals and minerals, even as the prices on the London Metals Exchange or LME remain buoyant.
Blackstone PE will acquire an additional 26% in Mphasis through an open offer price of Rs.1,677/ share, aggregating to $1.1 billion. Blackstone already owns 56% in Mphasis. Now Blackstone plans to take its holding to 75% and will bring in investors like ADIA and GIC of Singapore. Between 2016, when Blackstone first acquired a stake in Mphasis and 2021, the market cap of Mphasis has grown from $1.4 billion to $4.5 billion. Blackstone targets market cap of $10 billion for Mphasis; a cloud and digital solutions specialist.
Maruti Suzuki reported 6.14% fall in net profit to Rs.1,241 crore on a consolidated basis for the Mar-21 quarter. However, overall revenues were up 33.6% at Rs.22,960 crore in the fourth quarter. In pure volume terms, Maruti sold 27.8% higher vehicles at 492,235 units. For the fiscal year FY21, Maruti reported 22.7% fall in net profits at Rs.4,389 crore, even as full year revenues were also lower at Rs.66,572 crore. Maruti has done well despite challenging business conditions and declared dividend of Rs.45/share.