News Updates: May 13, 2020

• PM Modi has announced a total Rs. 20 Lakh Crore economic package to the country to overcome the Covid pandemic slowdown. The package is around 10% of the country's GDP and will focus on land, labour, liquidity and laws. The details shall be made public shortly.
• Vedanta has announced to delist its Indian listed entity. This will entail an investment of $ 2.5 billion by promoters.
• Jubilant Life Sciences has signed a non exclusive licensing agreement with the US based Gilead Sciences for manufacturing Remdesivir, which has been identified as potential Covid-19 therapy drug in India and 126 other countries.
• Reliance Industries has raised Rs. 10,000 Crore on Tuesday with papers of tenors of three years. Mutual funds and banks — Aditya Birla, ICICI Pru, HDFC MF, Nippon Life India, and HDFC Bank — are said to have subscribed to these shorter-duration bonds. RIL sold bonds in three series. While the company issued threeyear-and-four-month papers at 7.05% raising ₹4,235 crore, it mopped up ₹5,000 crore offering 6.95% with nearly three-year maturity. It raised ₹825 crore fetching the same rate and three-year maturity
•  The civil aviation ministry has come out with a draft SOP for restarting commercial air travel. Some of the measures suggested is mandatory use of Aarogya Setu app, reaching airport atleast two hours before departure time, not allowing cabin luggage etc.

News Updates: May 12, 2020

• Nippon Life is learned to have initiated talks to buy stake in IndusInd Bank.
• Union minister Mr. Nitin Gadkari said that a relief package for the Indian industry is expected to be announced in 2-3 days.
• The government has decided against lowering returns of regulated power assets. Last week government was said to be considering a proposal to ask central utility companies like NTPC, PGCIL to forego half of their ROE which is 15.50% at present in order to help ailing distribution companies.
• Bond yields have spiked by around 20 bps, after government announced significantly higher borrowing plan.
• Rupee on Monday declined by 19 bps to close at one week low of 75.73 against USD.
• Banks are likely to transfer bad loans worth Rs. 60,000 Crore to an ARC or bad bank to clean their balance sheet. Government is likely to infuse 50% of the capital amounting to about Rs. 10,000 Crore.

News Updates: May 11, 2020

• Indian Railway is gradually starting its passenger train operations, starting with 15 set of trains each day from May 12.
• Reliance Industries has fixed May 14 as the record date for its rights issue. RIL is raising Rs. 53,125 Crore through the 1:15 rights issue.
• Nomura has revised its projection for India's real GDP growth in FY21 to -5.2% from -0.4%.
• NHAI has deferred its fund raising plan through TOT model by two months.
• According to a report of Ministry of Statistics, 400 infrastructure projects having a cost of Rs. 150 Crore or more have suffered cost overruns of more than Rs. 4.06 Lakh Crore.
• Power consumption in April has fallen by 22.75% YoY mainly due to low demand amid the ongoing lockdown.

News Updates: May 9, 2020

• US PE firm Vista Equity Partners will invest $1.5 billion for a 2.32% stake in Jio Platforms. This is the third such stake sale in the platform after Facebook and Silver Lake have picked up stake recently.
• Government has revised its gross market borrowing target for the current financial year to Rs. 12 Lakh Crore from Rs. 7.8 Lakh Crore earlier.
• The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has approved a loan of $ 500 million to support India's efforts to fight Covid.
• The reverse auction of India's first Round the Clock (RTC) renewable energy supply conducted by SECI has concluded with ReNew Power quoting lowest tariff of Rs. 2.90/ unit (first year) for the entire 400 MW capacity. The tariff under this tender will be subject to 3% annual increase for 15 years.
• SBI has increased the home loan rate for new borrowers by 20 bps by widening the spread it charges over the External Benchmark Rate (EBR).
• Government has relaxed tax residency rules for stranded NRIs. Now those NRIs and visitors who are held up in India due to suspension of air travel will not have to count this duration while deciding their tax residency status.
• RBI has fixed the cut-off yield for government's 10 year security at 5.79%, which is the lowest since February 2009.

News Updates: May 8, 2020

• SBI on Thursday reduced its MCLR by 15 bps. 1-year MCLR has now been reduced to 7.25%.
• The government is considering issuing advisory to public sector companies like NTPC, PGCIL etc. to reduce the fixed charge by half, which they charge to state power distribution companies. In the recently notified tariff regulation for 2019-2024, CERC has kept the return on equity (ROE) as 15.50%.
• Banks in India have again started the discussion on creating a 'Bad Bank'
• Resolution plans for Uttam Galva Metallics and Uttam Galva Steels by CarVal Investors and Nithiya Capital Resources Advisors respectively have received the approval from the bankruptcy court. The resolution plan will get lenders about Rs. 2700 Crore or 37% of their total claims.
• While defending its October circular where it asked liquid funds to cap their holding of unlisted NCDs at 10% of the corpus, SEBI has asked Franklin Templeton (FT) to focus on returning money of investors. FT had blamed SEBI circular and claimed that it was stuck with these securities, since these NCDs could not be traded after SEBI circular.
• A combination of RBI's TLTRO auctions and surplus liquidity has resulted in significant higher primary bond issuance from corporates. During April 2020, companies issued bonds worth Rs. 71,628 Crore compared to Rs. 23,738 Crore in April 2019.
• As dues from discoms continue to rise, NTPC may consider invoking the three way agreement. Under the agreement, it can ask RBI to deduct the defaulted amount from the respective state government's account with the bank.
• Glaxosmithkline has sold its stake in Hindustan Uniliver for $3.4 bn. Prior to sale, GSK held 5.7% stake in HUL.

Newspapers of 1st April 2020

Corona Meter:

(DJ)

Govt. slashes small savings rate by  upto 140 bps:

(TOI) (FE) (ET)

Sterling and Wilson Solar repays Rs. 500 Crore external debt:

(FE)

China State Fund CNIC eyes stake in Greenko group:

(FE)

RBI opens up debt market to raise forex

(FE)

Some fun

(DJ)

DJ: Dainik Jagran

TOI: Times of India

FE: Financial Express

ET: Economic Times

Newspapers of 31st March 2020

Corona Meter:

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New Dates for Tokyo Olympics announced.

The organizing committee has announced new dates for the Tokyo Olympics, which were earlier postponed by one year. The games will now held from July 24 to August 9 in 2021.

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Lenders approve Suzlon’s debt resolution plan

(TH)                                                      (FE)

SECI says UP Discom’s force majeure claim not valid

(FE)

Shapoorji Pallonji group to raise upto USD 1 Bn pledging Tata Stake

(FE)

Brent hits 18-year low. Brent at USD 22.50/ barrel

(FE)

DJ: Dainik Jagran

TH: The Hindu

FE: Financial Express