In the first major development in the NSE co-location case, the CBI has booked Sanjay Gupta of OPG Securities for illegal access to NSE servers. Additionally, some officials of NSE and SEBI have also been booked in the case. In the high frequency trading (HFT) using servers collocated at the NSE, the broker even with a microsecond advantage could vastly outperform the other players. This was done by Sanjay Gupta with the active connivance of some key officials of NSE and SEBI. The access was down by OPG Securities using illegal software. The NSE IPO has been held up pending resolution to this case.
In what could be a green signal for the RCOM sale of assets to Reliance Jio, both Ericsson and RCOM have reached an out-of-court settlement of their earlier dispute. While Ericsson was demanding Rs.1150 crore as compensation, RCOM had offered to pay them Rs.500 crore. Now RCOM will be paying a sum of Rs.550 crore to Ericsson by the end of September 2018. This will enable RCOM to monetize its assets and also close out its deals with Jio and Brookefield. It also provides some breathing space to banks that have lent nearly Rs.25,000 crore to RCOM and is currently under NCLT resolution.
Oil major, ONGC, has reported 36% jump in net profits for the fourth quarter at Rs.5915 crore. Revenues from operations for the fourth quarter were up by 10% at Rs.23,969 crore. The revenues and profits of ONGC have received a big boost from sharply higher Brent Crude prices which has risen by nearly 60% since the beginning of the current calendar year. However, the stock price of ONGC is unlikely to be very impressed for 3 reasons. Firstly, the company has already undertaken a huge capex plan. Secondly, the HPCL acquisitions will add to its debt burden. Lastly, the oil cess will hit ONGC badly.
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) retained its forecast of average monsoons at 97% of the long term average. Normally, a range of 96% to 104% of long term average (LTA) is classified as an average monsoon. This was the forecast that the IMD had put out earlier in April and a final report is expected around the end of June after the monsoon hits parts of India. A good monsoon is crucial to the Kharif output which is largely monsoon dependent. That also has a bearing on the food inflation and the CPI inflation overall. It is not just the quantum but timeliness and spread of rain that matters.
Exactly 2 months after the whistleblower’s report on Chanda Kochhar’s conflict of interest surfaced, the bank CEO may be bracing herself for the final swansong. That was evident the moment the ICICI Board announced an independent enquiry into the conflict of interest episode. The entire fracas began when the whistleblower had alleged that part of the loans given to Videocon Group (which later became bad) has a quid pro quo in the form of commission paid to the spouse of Chanda Kochhar through a series of veiled transactions. While there was no concrete proof (the claim that the ICICI Board chose to hide behind earlier), the sequence of events pointed the needle of suspicion at the CEO. It now remains to be seen how genuinely independent the probe is and what is the outcome.
Mr. R Venkataramanan, a close confidante of Ratan Tata, has denied any wrong doing in Air Asia and has absolved himself of any involvement in the same. He has termed the allegations of the CBI as absolutely baseless. Venkat holds a critical position in the Tata Trusts which hold a chunk of the shares in the Tata group, which is why Venkat becomes so critical to the entire Tata Group. According to Venkat, these baseless allegations were made by former Tata Sons CEO, Cyrus Mistry, who was unceremoniously ejected from the top job at Tata Sons after he was found to be acting contrary to Tata’s interests.
