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New Delhi: The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Sunday reported a 1.1 per cent decline in sales at 1,47,110 units in February. The company had sold 1,48,682 units in February last year, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement. Domestic sales dropped 1.6 per cent to 1,36,849 units last month as against 1,39,100 units in February 2019, it added. Sales of mini cars, comprising Alto and WagonR, stood at 27,499 units as compared with 24,751 units in the same month last year, up 11.1 per cent. Sales of compact segment, including models such as Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and Dzire, declined 3.9 per cent to 69,828 units as against 72,678 cars in February last year. Mid-sized sedan Ciaz sales stood at 2,544 units as compared with 3,084 units in February 2019. However, sales of utility vehicles, including Vitara Brezza, S-Cross and Ertiga, rose 3.5 per cent to 22,604 units as compared with 21,834 units in the year-ago month, MSI said. Exports in February were ...

New Delhi: The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Sunday reported a 1.1 per cent decline in sales at 1,47,110 units in February. The company had sold 1,48,682 units in February last year, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement. Domestic sales dropped 1.6 per cent to 1,36,849 units last month as against 1,39,100 units in February 2019, it added. Sales of mini cars, comprising Alto and WagonR, stood at 27,499 units as compared with 24,751 units in the same month last year, up 11.1 per cent. Sales of compact segment, including models such as Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and Dzire, declined 3.9 per cent to 69,828 units as against 72,678 cars in February last year. Mid-sized sedan Ciaz sales stood at 2,544 units as compared with 3,084 units in February 2019. However, sales of utility vehicles, including Vitara Brezza, S-Cross and Ertiga, rose 3.5 per cent to 22,604 units as compared with 21,834 units in the year-ago month, MSI said. Exports in February were ...

NEW DELHI: The labour ministry is keen to retain an interest rate of 8.65 per cent paid on provident fund deposits to around six crore subscribers of retirement fund body EPFO for the current financial year, a source said.The apex decision making body of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) — Central Board of Trustees — is likely to consider the rate of interest on EPF (Employees' Provident Fund) deposits in its meeting scheduled on March 5, 2020."The proposal to provide interest rate on EPF deposits for 2019-20 may come up for consideration and approval in the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) meeting on March 5," a source said.The source further said that the ministry is keen to retain the interest rate at 8.65 per cent, as was provided in financial year 2018-19.Speculations are rife that the interest rate on EPF may be lowered to 8.5 per cent for the current fiscal, a tad lower than 8.65 per cent provided for 2018-19.According to the source, the agenda for t...

New Delhi: MG Motor India on Sunday reported retail sales of 1,376 units in February, hit by component supply constraints from coronavirus hit-China and other locations.The company had retailed 3,130 units in January.MG Motor India product portfolio comprises two models -- SUV Hector and ZS EV.MG Motor's sales last month included 158 units of ZS EV, the carmaker's latest product offering, the company said in a statement.The company had launched ZS EV at an introductory price of Rs 20.88 lakh (ex-showroom, New Delhi).MG Motor said it has already received 3,000 bookings till date - outpacing the total number of EV cars sold in India in 2019."The MG ZS EV has received a stupendous response in its debut month, with over 150 units delivered to our customers already," MG Motor India, Director - Sales, Rakesh Sidana said in a statement.Meanwhile, the unforeseen coronavirus outbreak has severely affected the company's European and Chinese supply chains, disrupting its pro...

Titled, 'CIELWorks 2020: Latest Trends in Indian Talent Market 2020' the study noted that social media platforms and job sites were still relevant at hiring candidates, however, an increasing number of companies now prefer to go through employment agencies.

New Delhi: Ajanta-Orpat Group, which operates in consumer electronic, electrical and home appliances segments, aims to double its turnover in next five years to Rs 2,400 crore, a top company official said. The group, which is also India's largest calculator and room heater manufacturer, had a combined topline of around Rs 1,200 crore in FY2018-19. The Gujarat-based company, which is also the world's largest wall clock manufacturer, expects revenue from its home appliances and fans division to be the key growth driver, contributing almost Rs 1,200 crore by fiscal year 2024-25. The company is also expanding its sales network and has also started its own e-commerce platform. "We plan to double the turnover by FY25 to around Rs 2,400 crore," Ajanta-Orpat Group Managing Director Nevil Patel said. "This fiscal, we have a growth rate of about 10 per cent Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) despite a slowdown in the economy," Patel said adding that the company is foc...

NEW DELHI: Taiwanese tyre major Maxxis Group is betting big on India, where it plans to build up to five factories, as it expects the country to play a crucial role in its chase to become a top five global player by 2025, according to a senior company official.The company, which clocked revenue of around USD 4 billion in 2019, is currently the world's 9th largest tyre brand and sees India along with Indonesia to play significant part in meeting its 2025 target.The company is investing USD 400 million on its first manufacturing plant at Sanand in Gujarat, where it is working to hike output to 60,000 units of two-wheeler tyres per day from the current 20,000 units a day, as part of the project's phase I expansion."Maxxis has a group goal of growing into the top five globally in next five years. We have accomplished much in East Asia, Southeast Asia and have significant presence in Europe and in American market.""The next major international markets for us will be t...

Mumbai: Companies are increasingly entrusting recruitment tasks in the hands of professional organisations for quality talent acquisition even as social media platforms and job sites are still one of the key hiring channels, says a study. According to a study by CIEL HR Services, that focused on the latest trends in Indian talent market, companies are now resorting to recruiting companies for quality talent acquisition across junior, mid and senior-level positions. Titled, 'CIELWorks 2020: Latest Trends in Indian Talent Market 2020' the study noted that social media platforms and job sites were still relevant at hiring candidates, however, an increasing number of companies now prefer to go through employment agencies. "The main reason behind companies shifting gradually to recruiting companies is because these firms are cutting down their work and time by screening and selecting relevant and quality talent," Aditya Narayan Mishra of CIEL HR Services said. The study th...

NEW DELHI: Delhi police made a heavy deployment of security personnel in southeast Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area, where several women have been leading a protest on the road against the new citizenship law for more than two months, as a precautionary measure on Sunday, officials said. The police deployment has come after a fringe right-wing group, Hindu Sena, gave a call to clear the Shaheen Bagh road on March 1. However on Saturday, with the intervention of police, they called off their proposed protest against the anti-CAA agitation in Shaheen Bagh. "The proposed protest call was cancelled with timely intervention. But as a precautionary measure, we have made heavy police deployment here," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) RP Meena said. Twelve companies, including two of female forces, have been deployed in Shaheen Bagh, 100 men each from four police districts have also been deployed along with the local police, the official said. The Hindu Sena said in a statement...

New Delhi: Mining baron Anil Agarwal, who was among the first to evince interest in bidding for Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), says valuation of the firm is too high and his company Vedanta will evaluate bidding for it when the final bid document is out. At the close of trading on Friday, BPCL had a market capitalisation of Rs 92,464.40 crore. At this price, the government's Rs 52.98 per cent stake that is being sold in the country's largest privatisation exercise is worth about Rs 49,000 crore. The acquirer will also be required to make an open offer for another 26 per cent stake from minority shareholders which will cost another Rs 24,000 crore. "We certainly are interested in bidding but the valuations are too high," Agarwal said. "The bid document is not yet out and we will carefully evaluate bidding once the offer document is out." He said share price has moved up 40-50 per cent since the time the government announced its plan to sell stake in Novemb...

NEW DELHI: The fuel prices saw further decline as the price of petrol was cut by 17 paise and that of diesel by 21 paise on Sunday.Petrol now costs Rs 71.71 per litre in Delhi, Rs 77.40 per litre in Mumbai, Rs 74.38 per litre in Kolkata and Rs 74.51 per litre in Chennai after the price cut.Similarly diesel costs Rs 64.30 a litre in Delhi, Rs 67.34 a litre in Mumbai, Rs Rs 66.63 a litre in Kolkata and 67.86 per litre in Chennai, according to Indian Oil Corporation website.The prices were reduced after the international crude oil prices witnessed a downward trend due to slump in demand. The Brent also fell by $0.86 per barrel and was trading at $50.50 per barrel after coronavirus deaths and cases increased all over the world. The retail prices of fuel are dependent on the international crude prices and the rupee-US dollar exchange rate as India imports almost 80 per cent of its crude requirements.Domestic petrol and diesel prices are reviewed by oil marketing companies on a daily basis. ...

NEW DELHI: The week gone by freshened up memories of 2008 financial crisis as global stock markets plummeted following the spread of coronavirus to more than 50 countries. As the world grappled with the economic implications of the crisis, investors were busy fleeing towards safe haven assets such as bonds and gold. BSE benchmark Sensex nosedived 1,448 points alone on Friday to log its second-worst pointwise decline in history. No sector was left unscathed.ETMarkets.com did a roundup of what the top market minds made of this move and what they predict going ahead. On a lighter note, chairman of Mahindra Group Anand Mahindra proposed a new term for the coronavirus panic-induced market crash: ‘Panicdemic’.Time to coin a new phrase. When markets panic over a pandemic is it a ‘panicdemic?’— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) 1582869920000 Independent market expert Sandip Sabharwal seems to find opportunity amid this crisis. The expert would like to buy this market fall, yet he is unsure it ha...

In the afternoon of February 24, US President Donald Trump mispronounced the names of Swami Vivekananda and Sachin Tendulkar as “Swami Vivekamunda” and “Soochin Tendulkar” at a rally in Ahmedabad on his maiden India visit. For social media trolls, this meant fresh fodder to mock Trump. For the digital marketing industry, this meant work.Since morning that day, a two-member team at Social Samosa, a Mumbai-based digital media company, was tracking hashtags like #NamasteTrump, #TrumpInIndia and #TopicalSpot on social media platforms. As a publisher, it curates the best of branding and marketing initiatives in the online realm in realtime. The team thought brands would want to be part of the buzz around Trump. They were right.Even before the videos of Trump and first lady Melania spinning the charkha at Sabarmati Ashram started doing the rounds, brands like Amul, Cipla and Vadilal had spun their creative posts. “He’s a Dolly Good Fellow,” read the copy of Vadilal’s branded post, with a vis...

I would not support sharing intelligence with that organisation (Taliban),” Mark Milley, chairman of US joint chiefs of staff, told a US Congress House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. This was even as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo led a group of international “interested bystanders” at a US-Taliban peace agreement signing ceremony in Doha on Saturday. That tells you, if nothing else, that the future of Afghanistan, Taliban, Pakistan and the US is anything but settled. India’s presence at the Doha signing is in a sense a coming out of the closet on the Taliban question, its role in Afghanistan, terrorism and Pakistan’s role. The peace agreement throws up as many questions as it answers. Is it about negotiating a safe passage for US troops as they leave Afghanistan, fulfilling a Trump election promise in another election year?Will the Taliban toil through negotiations with President Ashraf Ghani’s government to start an intra-Afghan dialogue? The Taliban have so far shown scan...

Global policy makers are on alert to the economic fallout from the spreading coronavirus after stocks slumped last week.Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is already standing ready to cut interest rates after saying Friday that the U.S. central bank will “act as appropriate” as the virus poses “evolving risks” to the economy.The week opens after Saturday’s release by China of an index of manufacturing activity. It’s plunge to a record low will renew fears that the world’s second largest economy may not rebound as fast as first hoped. A series of similar reports will be published in coming days around top economies, giving a sense of how they are faring.74423091 What Bloomberg’s Economists Say...“The data confirm the worse fears about a juddering halt in China’s economy in the first quarter, with significant spillovers to the region and the world.”The PMI should recover a little in March, but the damage will be far from being unwound and support from the government and central bank ...

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Saturday announced restrictions on travel from Iran and advised fellow citizens not to travel to certain areas of South Korea and Italy.The announcement came as the first death from coronavirus was reported in the US from the Washington state."Unfortunately, one person passed away overnight. She was a wonderful woman, a medically high-risk patient in her late 50s," Trump told reporters at the White House."Additional cases in the United States are likely, but healthy individuals should be able to fully recover. If you are healthy, you will probably go through a process and you will be fine," he said and urged people not to panic.As many as 15 people have recovered from the virus so far in the US."There is no reason to panic at all. Our country is prepared for any circumstance," the president said at his second press conference in the White House briefing room on his return from India on Wednesday.Joining the press co...

The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as consultant to study whether the upcoming Jewar airport in Greater Noida can have four or six runways.The decision was taken in authority’s board meeting on Saturday. Arun VirSingh, CEO of the authority told ET that PwC will study the financial implication of the expansion. “They have been given four months time for the study. Currently, two runways are proposed, but we want to see the feasibility of 4 or 6 runways. No airport in the country has six runways,” Singh said. Zurich Airports has won the contract to build and operate Jewar Airport in Greater Noida, which will act as the second airport for Delhi, for a period of 40 years that includes construction period of four years in the first phase.The Uttar Pradesh government has earmarked about 5000 hectare land in Jewar on Yamuna express for aviation and transport hub. About 1300 hectare land will be handed over to Zurich Airpor...

NEW DELHI: State-run power producer NTPC on Saturday said its 800 MW unit of Darlipalli Super Thermal Power Station in Odisha will start commercial operation from midnight. In a regulatory filing, NTPC said the 800 megawatt (mw) unit of Darlipalli Super Thermal Power Station Stage-I (2 x 800 MW) is declared on commercial operation with effect from 00:00 hrs, of Mar 1, this year. With this, the commercial capacity of NTPC and NTPC group will become 49,695 MW and 58,156 MW respectively, the filing added.

Truck drivers and fleet owners shell out around Rs 48,000 crore annually as bribes to traffic or highway police, a recent study has shown.The study conducted by SaveLife Foundation, a not-for-profit entity, was carried out across 10 major transport and transit hubs. The report released by junior minister for road transport V K Singh claimed that at an all-India level, two-thirds (67%) of the drivers admitted to having bribed traffic or highway police personnel on the road.Among the transport hubs included in the study, Guwahati fared the worst, where 97.5% of drivers claimed that they had paid bribes. This was followed by Chennai (89%) and Delhi (84.4%).Over 82% respondents admitted to having bribed “officials of one or the other department on the road” during their last trip, revealing the rampant corruption in the sector. Even local groups like “puja samitis” extort from truckers before allowing them to cross informal checkposts, with a quarter of the drivers paying them cash.Overall...

Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) said on Saturday that the gems and jewellery industry should have insurance cover for banks to "lend courageously" to the sector. He said the presence of an insurance cover will also lower capital requirement of the industry for jewellery exports. "Absence of an insurance cover is hurting lending to the gems and jewellery industry by banks. If there is an insurance cover, it will help the bank to lend courageously to the sector," SBI deputy managing director (clients group-I) P N Prasad said here. Speaking at an event, organised by ICC here, he said the exposure of SBI to the jewellery industry is around Rs 20,000 crore, adding that the lending growth to the sector has been muted at present. The SBI official said the "trust of the bankers on the gems and jewellery industry is not there" because of its practices "which caused misery to the banks". Fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi has allegedly ...

BENGALURU: Financial advisers advise retail investors to weather out Friday’s stock market rout, eerily reminiscent of the worst days of the 2008 financial crisis.“Retail investors must follow the path of asset allocation. In times of such high market volatility, there should be the right balance between greed, panic and prudence. A disciplined approach over time will give benefits. Remember, the markets corrected in 2003 with SARS. Ebola and Zika also had some impact,” said Kotak AMC MD Nilesh Shah.Analysts also said it is a good time now to set aside some money for MFs and systematic investment plans, instead of taking a direct bet on equities for those with a lower risk appetite. “SIPs would be the way to go. I’d say allocating 10-20% of one’s disposable income towards this for the next 2-3 years would be a good idea, as the current market is about waiting it out, and the long haul,” said Emkay Investment Managers CEO Vikaas Sachdeva.Dalal Street observers also say the coronavirus w...

What are you telling your HNI clients? In one of the tweets you mentioned, global set up is becoming shaky. Are they in profit because some of them would have been short anyway?It is a pretty sorry state of affairs right now. The foundation of this fall was laid six months back. It is a very synchronised decline that is happening across the globe and this is not a short term correction but more of a short term downtrend that is unlikely to end in a hurry. Given the factors that we are dealing with right now, not many market participants know how to position themselves and the chart themselves have been quite weak for the last couple of months. The manner in which we have come off, the kind of momentum that we are seeing on the way down with India VIX coming back to levels of 23 and too many stocks helping the Nifty go lower, we feel that 11,100 is a level where the market could actually find some support. The problem is the Bank Nifty has only now started its down trend after outperfor...

On Friday, India released its growth numbers for the December quarter. The data showed GDP growth at 4.7 percent in the third quarter of FY20 -- a marginal improvement over the 4.5 percent growth in the second quarter of FY20. Before one could heave a slight sigh of relief, the second quarter growth was revised up to 5.1 percent owing to downward revisions to the FY19 data.Result: The September quarter growth wasn't at a 6-year low anymore, the December quarter growth was now at a near 7-year low. The April to June quarter data was also revised upwards from 5% estimated earlier to 5.6%. Quarterly GDP growth this fiscal now reads 5.6%, 5.1% and 4.7%, underscoring the fact that all was still not well with the Asia's third-largest economy. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman termed the "steadiness" in the economy as a good sign.The annual GDP data can be revised up to six times. In 2016-17, Q1 GDP was revised upwards from 7.1% to 9.4% and the next year it went up from 5....

By Tom Metcalf, Jack Witzig and Tom MaloneyLast week was an expensive one for most investors, even for billionaires.The combined fortunes of the world’s 500 richest people fell by $444 billion as the coronavirus continued to spread -- and spread fear -- rattling equity markets worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 12 per cent, the biggest five-day slide since the depths of the 2008 financial crisis, in a rout that vaporized more than $6 trillion from global stocks. 74412356 The drubbing more than erased the $78 billion in gains that the 500 wealthiest people had amassed since the start of the year through last week, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.The world’s three richest people -- Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault -- incurred the biggest losses, with their combined wealth dropping about $30 billion.Elon Musk, the world’s 25th-richest person, rang up the fourth-largest weekly loss...

By DK AggarwalIn the last quarter of Calendar 2019, the world economy had just started dropping some green signals amid the first phase of trade deal between the US and China. And markets were expecting more strength in riskier assets and a little pause in safe haven buying in gold.However, the buoyancy was shortlived due to outbreak of coronavirus in China and rapid spread of the virus to other countries. This health hazard has created an emergency situation not only in China, but in the entire world. Trade activities have come to a halt in many parts of the world on fear of further spread of the virus, causing an immediate negative impact on economies, and ultimately on financial markets. This has triggered safe haven buying in bonds, dollar index and gold.On MCX, gold saw a huge jump and touched a new high of Rs 43,788 from the low of around Rs 39,000, just a few points shy of Rs 44,000 level. In international markets, the yellow metal saw the high of around $1,692, a level never se...

Bharti Airtel has paid the telecom department Rs 8004 crore more as statutory dues in its second tranche, taking the total amount paid by the operator to the government to Rs 18,004 crore .The latest deposit as adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues is split into Rs 3004 crore as full and final towards its AGR dues, based on its self assessment. It paid an additional Rs 5000 crore as “ad-hoc payment”, subject to refund after the telecom department reconciles it's own estimates with the telco's.“...the Company has paid an additional amount of Rs. 3,004 crores towards the full and final amounts due over & above the ad-hoc amount of Rs, 10,000 crores paid on February 17, 2020 on behalf of the Bharti Group of Companies (Bhartii Airtel, Bharti Hexacom and Telenor India),” said the telco in a regulatory filing on Saturday . “In addition to the aforesaid amounts paid basis our self-assessment, we have also deposited an adc!itlonal amount of Rs. 5,000 crores, as an ad-hoc payment,”(subj...

NEW DELHI: In a boost for public sector construction company NBCC's bid for Jaypee Infratech, the Supreme Court has ruled that 858 acres belonging to the bankruptcy-hit company was wrongfully mortgaged by its parent Jaiprakash Associates (JAL) and said it was a "preferential" transaction.The move is not only a setback to JAL's lenders - including ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI and Standard Chartered Bank - but has also set a precedent for other cases with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, which has circulated it as a guidance to insolvency resolution professionals and other cases. On February 8, 2018, TOI was first to report about Jaypee Infratech's interim resolution professional (IRP) Anuj Jain approaching NCLT to argue that the land was "fraudulently and wrongfully" mortgaged in a "preferential transaction" to secure a loan for parent JAL. NCLT had ruled that transactions were "fraudulent, preferential and undervalued" as d...

Bengaluru: The stock market crash this week has weighed heavily on some of the biggest names in the IT sector, reducing the net worth of their holdings drastically in certain cases.Since last Thursday, $3.2 billion has been wiped off from the promoters’ holdings of companies such as HCL, Wipro and Infosys. If this were to include TCS, which is held by Tata Sons, the loss balloons to $9 billion.HCL’s Shiv Nadar and Wipro’s Azim Premji are the biggest losers in the market rout, with the net worth of their holdings being shaved off by $1.6 billion and $1.4 billion respectively. This is because both hold a sizeable chunk of the companies personally and through various investment arms. Nadar holds about 60 per cent and Premji still controls 74 per cent. The shares of these two companies were the worst affected IT stocks in the last trading week. HCL lost nearly 12 per cent over the week to close at Rs 534 on Friday on the BSE, while Wipro lost 10 per cent to end at Rs 221.IT stocks have fal...

The current economic slowdown is "temporary", India's richest man Mukesh Ambani said on Friday.The chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries said that the coming decade would present a "historic opportunity" for businesses to excel and place India among the top three economies of the world.Ambani further added the slump was caused by external turbulence, and the country has reasons to be more optimistic for the next decade."I think while we have seen temporary pains, with the leadership that the finance minister provided we're just going to get out of it. External turbulence (has) hit us, but I am very very optimistic," Ambani said."All the reform measures that have been taken in the last few months will see the outcome and I am quite sure that in coming quarter this will reverse," he added.Reliance, in its forty years, started off with textiles, became a petrochemicals player, shifted focus to refining and energy and has now ...

The current economic slowdown is "temporary", India's richest man Mukesh Ambani said on Friday.The chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries said that the coming decade would present a "historic opportunity" for businesses to excel and place India among the top three economies of the world.Ambani further added the slump was caused by external turbulence, and the country has reasons to be more optimistic for the next decade."I think while we have seen temporary pains, with the leadership that the finance minister provided we're just going to get out of it. External turbulence (has) hit us, but I am very very optimistic," Ambani said."All the reform measures that have been taken in the last few months will see the outcome and I am quite sure that in coming quarter this will reverse," he added.Reliance, in its forty years, started off with textiles, became a petrochemicals player, shifted focus to refining and energy and has now ...

MUMBAI: The dedicated bankruptcy court has approved the request of lenders to Lavasa Corporation to consolidate the township developer and its wholly owned subsidiaries Warasgaon Assets Maintenance and Dasve Convention Centre as one.A consolidated entity will get better valuation when they are liquidated under the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP), the lenders had told the Mumbai bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).“Any standalone resolution does not seem to be possible and would therefore defeat the objective of the code (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code), which is to maximise the value of the company,” NCLT division bench of Suchitra Kanuparthi and Chandra Bhan Singh said in its order issued on Wednesday.WAML was incorporated to design, develop, construct, operate and maintain transportation infrastructure and project facility at the Lavasa hill station township near Pune, while DCCL was incorporated for running and maintaining the Dasve Convention Centre at Lava...

MUMBAI: Indian equities have shed their entire gains of 2020, caught in the global flight of capital from risk assets in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak. But financial planners are advising savers to not only stay put, but also invest more using the systematic investment plans (SIPs).“SIP investors should allocate 70% to large-caps, 20% to mid-caps and 10% in small-caps,” says Vishal Dhawan, chief financial planner, Plan Ahead Wealth Managers.Dhawan believes those investors who have strayed from this allocation, should rebalance their portfolios now. Many investors who chased past returns and started SIPs post-2017, allocated as high as 70-80% to mid- and small-cap funds with the balance to large-cap funds. With the sharp fall in the markets during this week on fears of coronavirus spreading globally, many retail investors are a worried lot.As per data from Value Research, three-year average SIP returns for large-cap funds category is 5.9%, large- and mid-cap funds 4.77%, multi-...

NEW DELHI: It’s been a tough few years for Samsung in the Indian handset market, where it has struggled to keep pace with or beat back competition from Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo.The first signs of vulnerability came when Samsung lost the smartphone crown to Xiaomi in the September quarter of 2017. In July-September 2019, it was pushed to No. 3 in smartphones by another Chinese player, Vivo. In the same quarter, Samsung also lost its top position in the overall market – smartphones and feature phones – to Xiaomi, after some nine years at the top. Xiaomi though only sells smartphones. Meanwhile, Oppo and Realme are breathing down its neck.According to analysts, Samsung wasn’t as nimble as its Chinese rivals and couldn’t take advantage of the expansion in the online segment. They however added that Samsung can bounce back, given its investments in technology and local manufacturing, the reputation of its devices and the deep penetration of the offline phone market. It’s...

MUMBAI: The new Vivaad se Vishwas tax litigation settlement scheme appears to have come as a blessing for those who came under scrutiny following demonetisation, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. They include promoters of several mining, commodities, textile and real estate companies who deposited unaccounted money or made supposedly questionable entries in the account books.Several sectors that transact in cash were left holding large sums when Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes were rendered invalid in November 2016. Several companies deposited the cash they were holding in bank accounts. Some allegedly faked entries in their financial statements to justify cash holdings and subsequently came to the attention of the tax department.In most cases, the income tax department issued notices to the companies and questioned the source of funds under Section 68 of the Income Tax Act dealing with unexplained cash credits in bank accounts or company books.“Many promoters...

MUMBAI|NEW DELHI: Chinese expats working in India are on an extended New Year holiday back home because of the Covid-19 outbreak.About 7,000 Chinese expats in sectors such as automobiles, electronics, mobile phones and ecommerce work in cities such as Bengaluru, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Jaipur. The majority had gone home for the Chinese New Year toward the end of January, a period coinciding with the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.“The epicentre of the Chinese (outbreak) may form only about 2-4% of Chinese expats, but it is fear psychosis that is putting them in trouble,” said Aravind Yelery, senior fellow at HSBC Business School, Peking University. “Some of the expats who are back after being examined or quarantined at the airports may find it tough to convince neighbours on their return to India.”The situation may not drastically improve in the next four to six weeks. The virus may cease to spread but worries associated with the contagion may linger. There has been a...

MUMBAI: Tata Motors is winding up its auto retail business Concorde Motors as part of its strategy to move away from non-core businesses. Set up in the late 90s in partnership with Jardine Matheson’s Jardine Motors, the Concorde retail business over the years has been losing money on account of high costs and low volumes.The company has registered a loss for seven consecutive years with cumulative losses crossing over Rs 366 crore. The winding-up process is in the final stages and it will be consummated before the end of this fiscal year. The company has sold almost all its outlets barring a couple of locations, which too may be executed shortly, say people in the know.Interestingly, this happens at a time when market leader Maruti Suzuki has decided to invest over Rs 1,500 crore annually on acquiring its own real estate for dealership as the high-cost structure in major cities is dissuading many entrepreneurs from entering the auto retail business or take up any new opportunities.Conc...