Both ACC and Gujarat Ambuja have confirmed that the merger plan mooted in May 2017 is currently being put on hold. While the companies accepted that merger was the ultimate goal, they were averse to committing to a merger at this point of time due to practical constraints. Investors were betting on the merger so that the merged entity could again become a formidable and more profitable player in the cement market. Hence, in the short to medium this cancellation of the merger plan is likely to be negative for both the companies since the markets were largely betting on the merger happening.
At a time when Warren Buffet and Goldman Sachs Inc. have been negative on bonds, Morgan Stanley has stuck its neck out with a bullish call on bonds. According to Morgan Stanley analysts, the sell-off in treasuries may be bottoming out and the time may be ripe for cherry picking bonds. While bonds are already yielding 4.5%, Morgan Stanley expects this yield to temper to 3.25% levels by the end of the current year. That should be a major bonanza for bond holders who will benefit from capital appreciation. The $14 trillion US bond market had seen its spill over effect on equities too.
The noose may be tightening around the Singh Brothers with the Delhi High Court ordering the attachment of unencumbered assets of the Singh Brothers holding companies. This is to cover the arbitral award of Rs.3500 crore made by a Singapore Court against the Singh Brothers for misrepresenting facts while selling their stake to Dai-Ichi of Japan in 2008. Dai-chi had bought Ranbaxy from the Singh brothers for $4.6 billion in 2008 but had to sell it to Sun Pharma in 2014 at just $3.2 billion. Singh brothers are also facing allegations of siphoning funds from Fortis Healthcare.
ONGC has confirmed that policy chances could delay the output from the Krishna Godavari Basin off the coast of Andhra Pradesh. ONGC was to commence production in June 2019 but that now looks highly unlikely. The GST implementation and the local purchase preference rules have changed the game and ONGC will have to delay its commencement. Additionally, the government has also put rules pertaining to local sourcing of steel for infrastructure projects further delaying the project. ONGC has already invested billions of dollars into the KG Basin and it needs to start commercial production soon.
Former finance minister, P Chidambaram, has highlighted the problem of India’s rising revenue deficit as the crux of the problem right now. According to Chidambaram, the rise in the revenue deficit is a much bigger worry compared to the fiscal deficit because the revenue deficit is an indication that the economy is borrowing for its morning breakfast. Chidambaram also spoke at length about the accounting gimmicks wherein the Rs.37,000 crore raised by ONGC to buy the government stake in HPCL was not included in the fiscal deficit, in which case, the actual fiscal deficit may have been closer to 3.7% instead of 3.5%. According to Chidambaram the worry is that the entire borrowing of Rs.91,000 crore has gone into bridging the revenue deficit, which is tantamount to borrowing from the future.
With the PNB scam now expanding, the RBI has written to 5 banks seeking details of their nostro accounts. A nostro account enables an Indian bank to hold foreign currency in an overseas bank to enable trade financing for its clients. A total of 293 fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LOU) were issued by banks to entities connected to Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi. The overseas branches of Canara Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of India, SBI and Allahabad Bank had given loans to Nirav Modi to the tune of Rs.11,400 crore based on fake LOUs issued by PNB. The audit trail may reveal important clues.
