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New Delhi | Mumbai: An unprecedented surge of enquiries from lakhs of daily wage earners, migrants and farm workers anxious to know if government payouts have reached their bank accounts in the midst of the Covid-19 induced economic upheaval is choking digital channels, according to bankers and payment operators.The high rate of transaction failures — between 40-45% — using the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS), is also leading to a pileup of credit reversals with banks, people monitoring the channels told ET.“The government is transferring money directly to accounts of so many people, so there is a natural tendency to enquire about the balance, the high rate of failure — close to 40% — is also adding to the urge to check balance again and again,” Dinesh Tyagi, chief executive of CSC e-Governance Services, told ET.India has over 370,000 digital kiosks — called Common Service Centres — across the country especially in the rural areas.NPCI Sets up Working GroupOf this, around 25,000 ...

Tyre makers are upbeat about the demand stemming from the replacement of tyres in the second quarter and reckon that original equipment (OE) sector will take more time to recover. Tyre companies have been operating some of their units with limited number of workers for over a week. “The work is mostly to clear the inventory before the lockdown was declared and to produce agricultural vehicle tyres,” said Rajiv Budhraja, director general of Automotive Tyre Manufacturers’ Association (Atma).Apollo Tyres has resumed partial operations in three of its four plants in India. CEAT Tyre has begun operation in five of its six units, except in Mumbai. The situation in Maharashtra is not conducive for opening of the plants, it is said. A large number of tyre units are located in the western and southern parts of the country. But the tyre units are currently running at around 30% capacity as the demand is still weak. "The first quarter in 2020 has been a washout and in the second quarter, the...

MG Motor India on Friday said it retailed zero units in April as dealerships remained closed due to the nationwide lockdown to contain coronavirus pandemic.The company, which reports only retail sales figures, has recorded zero retail sales for the month of April 2020, as its showrooms were closed due to nationwide lockdown, MG Motor India said in a statement.The carmaker, which began operations and manufacturing on a small scale at its facility in Halol in the last week of April 2020, hopes that production will ramp-up in the month of May and is working on the local supply-chain support.The company is gearing up for working as per norms, including sanitisation and social distancing, the automaker said.

In Reliance oil and gas segment, the EBIT loss stands at Rs 485 crore, the retail segment revenues stand at Rs 2,062 crore and digital revenue stands at Rs 4,104 crore. The exploration & production (E&P) segment has been reeling under pressure due to lower gas and oil prices. There is pain and loss leading to negative EBIT. So, it was important to look at GRM and petchem EBIT margins. Rs 53,000 crore is coming from the rights issue; Rs 43,000-44,000 crore is coming in from the Facebook deal and another Rs 7,000 crore is coming in from the BP deal. Do you think the big overhang of Rs 1.5 lakh crore of net debt is getting addressed now?Initially they were targeting almost this much amount from the Aramco deal. So, this would address the concern of high debt and will help in balance sheet deleveraging which has been seen as the key catalyst for the stock if the company is to achieve its target of zero net debt by March 2021.

NEW DELHI : The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki reported zero sales last month with factories shut in compliance with government orders to prevent the check of the coronavirus pandemic. “Maruti Suzuki India Limited had zero sales in the domestic market, (including sales to OEM), in April 2020”, the company said in a filing to the bourses, adding, “This was because in compliance with the Government orders all production facilities were closed.”Meanwhile, following resumption of port operations, the first export shipment of 632 units was undertaken from the Mundra port, ensuring that all guidelines for safety were followed.

MUMBAI: Purchasing vehicles online would trump visiting dealerships and leasing vehicles on subscription models, rather than buying them outright, are two trends consumers would be tilting towards in the future, a Deloitte survey found.Over half the participants in the survey said they would buy their next vehicle online, if available. The survey polled 1,000 people over the age of 18 years and the participants were representative of the overall population, said Deloitte.Meanwhile, over 70% participants said they would limit the use of ride-hailing services and public transport. About 84% of the people said the idea of owning a vehicle was valuable to them, but 66% said they would be avoiding any large purchase.“We are dealing with a complex scenario where a person is saying that they want to delay their large purchases but that same individual in saying that they want to limit the use of public transport and ride-hailing services,” said Rajeev Singh, partner and automotive sector lead...

NEW DELHI : The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki reported zero sales last month with factories shut in compliance with government orders to prevent the check of the coronavirus pandemic. “Maruti Suzuki India Limited had zero sales in the domestic market, (including sales to OEM), in April 2020”, the company said in a filing to the bourses, adding, “This was because in compliance with the Government orders all production facilities were closed.”Meanwhile, following resumption of port operations, the first export shipment of 632 units was undertaken from the Mundra port, ensuring that all guidelines for safety were followed.

Mumbai: Reliance Industries’ chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani will forgo his entire compensation from April 2020 as India’s biggest private sector major announced salary cuts and bonus deferments for directors on the board and for select employees in the hydrocarbons business.The board of directors of RIL, including executive directors, executive committee members and senior leaders, will forgo 30-50 per cent of their compensation, the company said in a letter to employees dated April 29.“The hydrocarbons business has been adversely impacted due to reduction in demand for refined products and petrochemicals,” executive director Hital R Meswani said in the letter. “This has of course put pressure on the hydrocarbons business, necessitating optimisation and cost reduction across all fronts. The situation demands that we maintain a razorsharp focus on operating cost and fixed costs and all of us need to contribute to make this happen.”Salaries of those earning less than Rs 15 ...

Mumbai: Encouraged by the 30 per cent rebound in the market from their lows on March 24, traders carried forward their bullish bets to the May series on expiry of the April contracts on Thursday.While fund managers and analysts have become wary about the market’s prospects after the bounce, few are willing to bet on a sharp fall immediately amid optimism about a pharma company making headway in finding a treatment for coronavirus and the US Federal Reserve’s stimulus.Nifty rollovers stood at 67 per cent on a provisional basis, slightly higher than 62 per cent rollovers last month. Market-wide rollovers at 88 per cent were largely in line with last month.“The open interest in Nifty May futures is 1.02 crore compared to 1.15 crore on expiry day last month. Falling volatility, rising PCR (put-call ratio) and light market position indicates there could be some more bounce in the market,” said Chandan Taparia, derivative analyst at Motilal Oswal.India VIX has cooled off from 83.6 level in M...

Mumbai: A 45-day factory shutdown will result in a revenue loss of over ₹1 lakh crore for the Indian automotive industry, which amounts to 0.5% of GDP. The country has been locked down from March 25 to May 3, by which factories would have been shut for 40 days, to curb the spread of Covid-19. Most auto plants shut on March 20.Zero production also means the government’s goods and services tax (GST) collections will take a hit of more than ₹28,000 crore, apart from ₹14,000 crore in other state levies, according to an analysis by the ET Intelligence Group. Although the government has allowed some plants to restart, auto companies feel there’s little point as vendor supplies are uncertain, showrooms are shut, inventories are piled high and no one’s buying any cars right now. There’s no clarity yet on what happens after May 3. Auto companies want all segments of the ecosystem to be opened up for business once the lockdown is over, with precautions in place. 75482901Recovering the lost reven...

NEW DELHI: Most states could stop reporting new cases of Covid-19 as soon as May 7, barring populous ones such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, according to a Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy (MSEPP) paper. All this is dependent on anti-infection curbs being observed, said authors Neeraj Hatekar and Pallavi Belhekar, both economists.They studied infection patterns in other countries such as China and Australia, the manner in which microorganisms multiply and other data. The paper, The End is Near: Corona Stabilizing in Most Indian States, estimates when each state will stop reporting new cases and says as many as 11 will reach this goal by May 7. Hatekar and Belhekar said India as a whole will do so by May 21.The paper however cautioned states against allowing largescale movement of migrant labour as it could negate the benefits of the lockdown and lead to further complications.“It's not true that throughout Covid-19 infections follow an exponential path,” Hatek...

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has given the green signal to the country’s payment networks — Visa, Mastercard and NPCI — to allow tap-and-go functionality on card payments for all purchases at retail stores and shopping centres, a move aimed at making such transactions safer and contact-free during and after the coronavirus pandemic.After due upgrades by banks and payment service providers, customers can avoid swiping their credit and debit cards at shops enabled with contactless point-of-sale devices, even for purchases exceeding the current limit of Rs 2,000.Tap-and-go card payments for purchases above Rs 2,000 will require two-factor authentication and customers must enter a PIN to process the transaction.“Card-present (CP) transactions with EMV chip and PIN cards may be processed in contactless mode, irrespective of the transaction value,” the RBI said in an email to the country’s three card networks. “However, the transactions with values over Rs 2,000 shall be authenticated b...

MUMBAI: Festive-season sales of the Indian auto industry, where some segments saw volumes in FY20 slide to the lowest in a decade, could be hit rather hard if plants don’t resume full production by June.Industry experts told ET that auto makers are currently budgeting for a phased end to the lockdown while planning output schedules. What’s worrying them are obvious gaps in the supply chain.“Shutting down factories within a day is easy, but to restart a full ecosystem is a Herculean and time consuming task,” said a top industry executive, who didn’t want to be named. “After an average festive season last year and April a total washout, a good festive season looks highly improbable.”To be sure, the festive-season calendar this year is more back-loaded. Diwali, which is the bumper season for all classes of consumer goods purchases, is in mid-November. “Some of our customers are postponing purchases by up to six months, which may augur reasonably well for the festive season,” said Vijay Na...

NEW DELHI: India’s renewable energy push has come under strain, with a 7% on-year fall in solar rooftop capacity building in 2019 ending an eight-year run of continuous growth in demand. Demand is likely to fall further in 2020 owing to disruptions caused by Covid-19, according to a report by consultancy firm Bridge to India.This is a cause for concern for the government, which has declared renewable power an essential service amid the lockdown to keep up growth.The ‘India Solar Rooftop Map Report’ says India’s rooftop installed capacity stood at 5,440 mw on December 31, 2019, adding only 1,534 mw that year.The agency attributed the decline to uncertainty in the market owing to policy volatility and a weakening economy. The general election in 2019 and depreciation of the rupee were also contributory factors. “Rooftop solar has finally hit the blues after continuous growth,” said Vinay Rustagi, managing director, Bridge to India. “We see a sharper slowdown this year because of Covid-19...

MUMBAI: A swelling list of corporates has begun pre-litigation mediation discussions with law firms for faster resolution and to save costs. Many are no longer keen on using force majeure or the Doctrine of Frustration clauses, seeking the cheaper option instead.Companies in the manufacturing, services and real estate sectors, in particular, are looking at mediation to end disputes with suppliers, vendors, consumers and even lenders.“There will be a flurry of notices invoking force majeure clauses and our corporate team is in the midst of giving opinions to clients on the way ahead so as to best safeguard their interests,” said Suruchi Suri, partner of Suri & Co. “With case scheduling being thrown off by the pandemic and real public safety issues, corporates would do well to seriously consider using the pre-litigation mediation provision.”The Commercial Courts Act, 2015, allows corporates to settle disputes through this.Total legal expenditure of listed companies on Indian bourses ...

These are testing times, and financial markets are turning the principles of investing upside down. Yet, uncertain times in the markets almost always throw up the best wealth creation opportunities. Which is why by no means should your financial journey get locked down at this stage. The state of the current market does call for a lot of caution, but what the average investor needs most is reliable advice, wisdom, insights and time-tested investment strategies.ETMarkets Investor Conference (virtual) promises to be just that. In an attempt to empower investors to make the best use of the opportunity at hand, ETMarkets.com -- India's most trusted digital platform for financial markets -- brings the best minds of Dalal Street on a single platform. They will decode the emerging dynamics of the economy and markets, draw insights and analyses, pool in experience and expertise to bring out the best strategies across asset classes for the days and months ahead.The first ET Markets Investor...

By Vrishti Beniwal and Debjit ChakrabortyIndia’s 40-day lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus is curbing oil demand and reducing the government’s tax income from the petroleum industry, which contributes about a fifth of budget revenue.Consumption of fuel products probably declined at least 80% in April, which would lead to a revenue loss of as much as Rs 40,000 crore ($5.3 billion), according to estimates from Madan Sabnavis, an economist at Care Ratings Ltd.That means the lockdown has cost the government about $175 million a day in lost oil revenue this month.Demand in the world’s third-biggest consumer of fuel plummeted this month as the government imposed a lockdown on 1.3 billion people, restricting their mobility and shutting down most businesses. At the same time, oil prices have collapsed, further reducing tax receipts from fuel products and crude production from local fields.“Low crude oil prices is a worry for the government as tax revenue will get affected,” said...

KOLKATA: India’s diamond trade may reduce import of rough stones for a month beginning May 15, as it adjusts to a fall in demand in the global gems and jewellery market in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.The main associations in the diamond trade — Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), Bharat Diamond Bourse, Mumbai Diamond Merchants Association, Surat Diamond Bourse and Surat Diamond Association — have urged their members to curtail import of rough diamonds for 30 days, senior trade executives said. They expect this to also give a signal to bankers that the trade would not increase its indebtedness and make them confident to continue supporting the sector.The sector had around $9.5 billion of bank debt at the beginning of the current financial year started on April 1.India’s gross import of rough diamonds had declined by 13.43% to $12.39 billion between April 2019 and February 2020 from a year earlier. Covid-19, which took a pandemic shape this March, has completely s...

By Andy MukherjeeSmall Indian companies getting decimated by the world’s harshest coronavirus lockdown finally see a ray of hope.Details are still sketchy, but the Indian government plans to backstop banks if they increase overdraft limits by 20%, providing Rs 3 lakh crore ($39 billion) of new working capital to smaller enterprises, Bloomberg News has reported. A state-sponsored fund will absorb losses.Seeing how the U.S. Small Business Administration’s paycheck protection program has been overwhelmed by demand, India needs to match urgency with careful design. My colleague Shuli Ren has noted how Chinese business owners have diverted anti-virus funding to property or wealth management products. This could happen in India, too. Yet it would be a bigger mistake to dither indefinitely because some fiscal assistance may be misused. Three out of four Indian employees work casually for others or at family firms and farms. It’s perfectly normal for even white-collar workers to get paid in ca...

NEW DELHI: Buoyed by encouraging data from Covid drug trials in the US, domestic equity indices extended their rally to the fourth day during the week on Thursday. Expansion of Chinese factory data also helped the sentiments on Dalal Street.Gilead's antiviral remdesivir in early clinical trials seemed to show it helped speed recovery in Covid-19 patients. This gives hope when the worldwide death count from the virus has surpassed 2,25,000.BSE flagship Sensex rose as much as 920 points to 33,640 while NSE benchmark Nifty added 251 points to 9,801. Broader market indices were trading in-line with their headline peers as Nifty Smallcap gained 2.07 per cent while Nifty Midcap jumped 1.48 per cent. Nifty 500 was up 1.89 per cent.FACTORS DRIVING MARKET1. Covid drug trialPreliminary results from a US government trial showing that patients given experimental antiviral drug remdesivir recovered 31% faster than those given a placebo, raised hopes that soon there will be a cure for Covid-19. ...

By Swansy AfonsoIndians may borrow more against their stash of gold as the world’s biggest lockdown raises financial stress in an economy that’s set for its first contraction in four decades.Indians are the biggest consumers of gold after China and hold the largest hoard of the precious metal. Gold is both an insurance policy and a retirement plan in a country that lacks robust social welfare systems or widespread access to formal credit. And with economic activity coming to a virtual standstill after Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a 40-day nationwide lockdown to combat the coronavirus, more Indians are likely to turn to gold loan companies to raise money against the precious metal.“Recycling and collateralized loans against gold may be expected to grow exponentially in the next few quarters,” P.R. Somasundaram, managing director for India at the World Gold Council, said in an interview. “There will definitely be a strong growth in that area for two reasons: the prices are going ...

MUMBAI: Scientists from the Haffkine Research Institute, along with the state’s medical education department (MED), are set to conduct a multi-centre clinical trial to test the use of tuberculosis vaccine BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) to treat Covid-19. While multiple trials the world over, including one by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), are looking at the vaccine’s efficacy to prevent the coronavirus disease, this trial will evaluate whether it can treat the infection. The 121-year-old institute’s trial is intended for patients who are moderately ill with Covid-19 and is likely to be carried out in small batches. It will be conducted at state-run medical colleges and has already been approved by the state and the institutional ethics committees. Confirming this, MED secretary Dr Sanjay Mukherjee said, “We are awaiting the Drug Control General of India’s (DCGI) nod to begin work. There is a lot of speculation around BCG and whether it has any impact on Covid-19. We wil...

Kolkata: Coal India, the monopoly miner of the solid fuel, has firmed up plans to recruit around 6,600 people in executive and non-executive cadres this year even as its sales reflect the declining demand trend in the broader economy.“The pace of recruitment, which has currently slowed down due to the lockdown, will be considerably accelerated by Coal India and our subsidiaries once the situation normalizes as a large number of posts are vacant and many more are to fall vacant during the year,” a senior Coal India executive said.Last year, Coal India recruited about 8,000 people in both executive and non-executive cadres.It has already conducted written tests for recruiting 1,326 executives, but interviews were postponed due to the lockdown. The process will be completed in a few weeks after the lockdown is withdrawn.Coal India also recruits a large number of doctors since mining is prone to accidents. About 400 doctors will be appointed in the executive cadre by subsidiaries in a rece...

NEW DELHI: Mandatory mobile check- ins and check outs, cashless payments, a la carte menus, reduced banqueting and distant seating in restaurants. Hotel chains have begun revamping their existing service protocols and standards for guests following the COVID-19 pandemic.The world’s largest hotel chain Marriott International has embarked on project ‘We Care’ in India, which will entail new standard operating procedures for its staff and guests. “As prudent operators towards all stakeholders- our employees, customers and owners, we want to make sure we are gearing up to be able to deal with what people are calling the new normal. We have used feedback from customers and emerging trends to figure out how we tweak our operations,” Neeraj Govil, senior VP, South Asia at Marriott International told ET. “There are certain things customers will expect going forward. Contactless experiences will be important. We also believe that travellers will demonstrate preferences for hotels, restaurants a...

By Saritha RaiAn innocuous WhatsApp “Hi” could end up transforming a $1 trillion industry.Facebook Inc. bought its way into India’s internet commerce sphere last week with a $5.7 billion investment in Reliance Industries Ltd., a sprawling conglomerate in everything from telecom to energy. They launched their first pilot within days, a program covering three Mumbai neighborhoods where consumers can send that monosyllabic greeting to a designated number, bringing up an in-chat interface through which they then browse a catalog of goods on Reliance’s Jiomart, place an order and arrange for pickup.That in itself is novel to much of the rest of the world -- shopping via a messaging platform. But in coming weeks, the pair are likely to add online payments -- a simple move expected to create a potential leader in India’s frenetic digital payments arena.The Silicon Valley social media giant and India’s largest corporation both serve around 400 million users in the country, and they’ve made it ...

A second or third round of lockdown will be devastating for the Indian economy, former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said today. In conversation with former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the former Reserve Bank of India governor talked about the state of the economy and India should revive it in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic."India needs to be cleverer about reopening the economy," Rajan noted. If the country faces a surge of cases after the government lifts the restrictions then questions will arise on how successful the lockdown was, he said, which might push the country into another lockdown. This would then diminish credibility and confidence of the government.Rajan also said that it was “all too easy to have a lockdown forever, but that would not be sustainable for the economy,” as he pushed for more measures by the government to combat the virus.The noted economist pegged the cost of bringing the economy back to life at Rs 65,000 crore, saying that out of India...

Bengaluru-based Strides Pharma Science said it has started exports of Favipiravir, which has shown to be effective in reducing recovery time in Covid-19 patients. In an interview with Divya Rajagopal, Strides Pharma’s CEO R Ananthanarayanan, shared the company’s plan for the drug’s India launch and the other medicines being developed for Covid-19. Edited excerpts:Which countries have prescribed this drug ?It started getting used in Japan. They used it in China too. The GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries reached out to us early on through their treatment regimen programme.What about India supply?Our focus is ensuring that we are able to get approvals for all the necessary studies and data in India. We will be able to provide the drug once the Indian approvals come through. This is our main bottleneck now.Would you be looking for fast-track approval?We are hoping that happens, and we are working closely with the drug regulator. Data applications are being put together to send acros...

NEW DELHI: Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi's repeated push to the AYUSH ministry guidelines, which suggest a range of home remedies to boost immunity, many states have started mass distribution of Ayurvedic medicines and homeopathy immunity boosters.Many states are also administering the recommended concoctions and medicines to patients in government quarantine facilities with mild symptoms, those who are recovering from Covid-19 and also to their asymptomatic contacts.Deputy director, AYUSH department in Madhya Pradesh, PC Sharma, told ET that the state has already started mass distribution of Ayurvedic products such as Sanshamani Vati and Anutel and packets of Trikatu, Also, nearly 700 patients quarantined in the severely-hit areas of Bhopal, Indore and Ujjain are being given Arogya-20, a concoction prepared by the state AYUSH department, with essential herbs twice a day, to boost immunity.In Tamil Nadu, under the Arogyam campaign, nearly one lakh families living in contai...

Bengaluru: India could see more deaths due to hunger than from the pandemic if it continues to remain in lockdown to halt the spread of Covid-19, according to Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy. The country must accept the coronavirus as the new normal, and facilitate the return-to-work of able-bodied while protecting the most vulnerable, Murthy said.“What is important for us to understand is that India cannot continue in this situation for too long. Because at some point of time, deaths due to hunger will far outweigh deaths due to coronavirus,” he told business leaders at a webinar on Wednesday.India’s mortality rate of 0.25-0.5% of total positive cases was very low compared with the developed countries, he said.So far, India has been able to flatten the curve — or reduce the spread of the virus — in most places due to the lockdown, which has been extended till May 3. More than 31,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in India so far, of which 1,008 have died since the first r...

Mumbai: India is on the cliff ’s edge of an imminent downgrade by Moody’s and an outlook change by Fitch to negative in the backdrop of coronavirus outbreak and lockdowns that have derailed fiscal discipline and are biting into growth, said Japan-headquartered Nomura in a research note.There is increasing risk that Moody’s could downgrade India to Baa3 ‘stable’ from Baa2 ‘negative’, bringing it on par with S&P and Fitch, both of which rate India at BBB-, the brokerage said. Fitch could also change outlook on India to negative due to deteriorating debt dynamics and its assessment that India has a poor fiscal track record.“India’s Achilles heel on ratings remains its parlous state of fiscal affairs. A potential spike in its general government debt from around 70% of GDP to around 75-80% of GDP may possibly trigger a reassessment of ratings, particularly for Moody’s,” said Nomura.India currently has a sovereign rating of BBB- with a stable outlook from S&P and Fitch — a grade abov...

MUMBAI: Mumbai-based IPCA, the largest active ingredient manufacturer of the hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the world, has requested the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and the European Medicine Agency (EMA) to issue a clarification on their recent advisory on the use of this drug and its possible side effects. In the letter the company has asked the regulators to clarify the low risk of the drug in approved indication and dosage for patients of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and lupus.HCQ, besides being administered as an anti-malarial drug, is also used as a chronic therapy by patients suffering from auto immune diseases such as RA and Lupus. In the recent months the drug has been used in several countries including India and US in the treatment of critically ill Covid-19 patients.A week ago, USFDA and EMA issued an advisory cautioning the use of HCQ or chloroquine for Covid-19 outside of the hospital setting or a clinical trial due to risk of heart rhythm problems. IPCA has requeste...

Kolkata | Mumbai: Consumers in metros and cities are now buying pricier, premium and healthier food products and indulgent gourmet variants, hoping to satiate the void created by their inability of eating out at restaurants and also to eat healthy.This is in contrast to initial days of lockdown when consumers loaded their pantry with basic staples such as rice, atta, oil and pulses, which were later upgraded to packaged ready to eat or cook food, jams and butter, instant noodles and masspriced chocolates.“While during the early days of lockdown basic essentials got sold, with time some discretionary sales are coming back,” said Devendra Chawla, MD at Nature’s Basket and Spencer’s Retail that saw 30-60% growth in sales for cold cuts, exotic vegetables, assorted breads and cakes, cookies, international sauces, organic range of staples in last ten days.“As people get adjusted to restricted living as the new normal and lack of options to eat out, consumers are increasingly taking on the ch...

ET Intelligence Group: After the lockdown ends, or is partially lifted, equity market investors would continue to be guided by five developments across companies and sectors:1. NON-DISCRETIONARY CONSUMPTION OFFERING GROWTH VISIBILITYPersonal care services, footfall-dependent businesses, luxury or non-urgent products, travel, seasonal products and services, entertainment and eating out will continue to be impacted and the Street is likely to avoid such businesses. On the other hand, companies that are able to better leverage technology — edtech, healthcare and logistics — and those that are able to grab new opportunities, like adding hand sanitisers as a product , may be preferred.2. WELL-CAPITALISED BUSINESSESThe Street would prefer companies that have money to not only stay liquid but also to remain solvent. “Covid vagaries will reveal the quality of funds available to companies — whether they have ‘real’ cash in hand that is well deployed in real liquid instruments or doubtful assets...

Mumbai: In the staid world of debt funds, they were the equivalent of Savile Row suits – until last week. Since Franklin Templeton abruptly pulled the plug on six debt schemes, the money under management at Mumbai’s high-yielding credit risk funds has shrunk by about a fifth in just three working days.Pronounced outliers in the debt basket, credit risk funds yielded significantly higher returns than normal debt funds because of their bets on higher-risk bonds. In times of stress, however, the risks appear to have outweighed rewards, upending the riskiest end of the debt market.Data by industry body AMFI showed that assets under management (AUM) of credit risk funds fell to Rs 39,510 crore on April 28 from Rs 48,576 crore on April 23, when Franklin Templeton made its surprise winding-up announcement after trading had long ended that day in a locked down Mumbai. The AUM decline factors in both the impact of redemptions and shrinkage in net asset value of units.To be sure, AUM in this cat...

BENGALURU: At a time when consumers are looking for low-cost options and as products from large FMCG players have become scarce on online platforms, players such as BigBasket, Grofers, Amazon and Flipkart have seen sales of their private labels in essential categories grow strongly.Industry executives and analysts told ET that private brands in categories such as pulses, detergents and personal care have received a boost over the past five weeks as the country went under lockdown to stem the spread of the outbreak. Consumers are preferring to buy lower-cost alternatives to tried and tested brands as spending is hit due to the uncertainty surrounding the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, experts said.For instance, Amazon’s Presto brand floor cleaner is 25% cheaper than rival Reckitt Benckiser’s market leading Lizol. A similar product from BigBasket is priced at least 15% lower, while Flipkart’s Supermart-branded floor cleaner is 50% cheaper than Lizol. BigBasket and Grofers ...

MUMBAI: The coronavirus pandemic might help achieve India’s stated goals of creating a less-cash economy and enhancing financial inclusion. Shoppers at even neighbourhood stores now want contactless digital payments, and that demand dovetails with what lenders want in lieu of working capital loans — digital invoices and online transaction records.Top fintech companies are, therefore, rushing to tap into this new consumer trend, with several of them offering digital solutions to small merchants. These range from instant loans to digital billing to even geotagging, as companies believe the merchant digitisation business will boom when the lockdown eases.Leading UPI player PhonePe, for example, has introduced new features on its popular mobile application that allows customers to track live the shops open in their vicinity. The Walmartowned payment firm has also provided an option to make remote payments — without visiting the shops — directly from the app.“These features also solve the p...

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is looking to raise the 15% ceiling on promoter shareholding in private sector lenders as part of new rules that are being drawn up, said people with knowledge of the matter. Voting rights will however be capped at 15-20%, they said.The move to balance ownership and control comes as some private sector banks have sought a relaxation in licensing norms, citing the regulator’s recent decision on Kotak Mahindra Bank. The RBI didn’t respond to queries. “The central bank has been reworking the shareholding norms to ensure parity among all players,” said one of the persons. “The new rules were in the works but delayed due to the Covid-induced lockdown, and might be issued in a few weeks.”In January, the RBI allowed Uday Kotak, Asia’s richest banker, to hold a 26% stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank as long as the lender didn’t raise capital through a share sale. The promoter’s voting rights were restricted to 15% from April. The rules also stipulated that Uda...

BENGALURU | MUMBAI: Indian IT services companies may reduce dependence on subcontractors to control costs, as the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to slow new deal flow and pressure margins. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro and Mindtree said subcontracting costs are expected to fall in the coming months. On average, subcontracting forms about 10-15% of total employee cost.In the last few years, subcontracting costs had spiked as IT firms looked beyond in-house talent for new-age technical skills. “We will be reducing dependency on contractors to some extent to optimise it (cost). Lateral hiring will be done for specific skills in a limited manner and we also continue to build talent within the organisation,” Milind Lakkad, Global Head, Human Resources at TCS, told ET.Subcontracting costs made up for 13% of total employee cost (a sum of internal employees and subcontracting costs) at TCS last financial year. At Wipro and Infosys, it formed about 22% and 12% respectively, durin...

Strides Pharma Science Ltd on Wednesday said it has developed and commercialised Favipiravir antiviral tablets and stressed that the drug has demonstrated positive outcomes in COVID-19 treatment globally."Favipiravir is an antiviral medication that was initially developed to treat influenza in Japan. In February 2020, post the outbreak of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), Favipiravir was studied in China and several other countries as an experimental treatment of COVID-19. "The drug has demonstrated positive outcomes, including a reduction in the duration of COVID-19 and improved lung conditions for the patients," the company said in a filing to the BSE. The product is a generic version of Avigan of Toyama Chemical, Japan. The filing said Strides is the first Indian company to have commenced export of Favipiravir tablets.The company said it will immediately apply to Indian Drug Authorities to commence necessary studies and make the drug available to Indian patients expeditio...