Weekly Capsule (Nov 19– Nov 23) and Impact Analysis

News Announcement Impact Analysis
Government confirms over Rs.3 trillion of stressed assets resolved
  • This included resolution plans, cases settled and recoveries over the last 2 years since the IBC Act was passed
  • The Indian banking industry is fighting with stressed assets in excess of $200 billion due to faulty loans
Stock markets may be up but stock brokers are down 70% since 2013
  • This is largely an outcome of greater institutionalization of broking and extensive use of automation in the last 5 years
  • Costs have gone up sharply but margins in broking have come down drastically in the last five years
IL&FS may put up 10 of its subsidiaries for sale to recover dues
  • As of now, the board has already called for expression of interest (EOI) for the securities business
  • The IL&FS group has been consistently defaulting on loan repayments since the beginning of July this year
Trillion dollars US tech companies take deep cuts in price
  • Both Amazon and Apple have lost over 25% of their value from their peak market cap of $1 trillion a few months back
  • Microsoft has now emerged as the most valuable company in the world followed closely by Apple, Amazon, and Google
OPEC to meet on December 06th in Vienna on future of oil pricing
  • OPEC and Russia have been talking about supply cuts once again to stabilize the prices after the sharp crash
  • But the real issue may be the global slowdown and hence the G-20 meet in Buenos Aires may be more critical for oil
IIFL Finance looks to raise Rs.5000 crore via nonconvertible debentures
  • IIFL Finance is looking to use the capital to prop up its capital base even as NBFCs are facing a liquidity crunch in markets
  • This money will be raised through the public issue route although it may be spread across a couple of tranches
The government of India may fall short of its GST targets by nearly Rs.1 trillion
  • At the current run rate, the GST revenues have been falling short in almost all the months compared to estimates
  • The worry is that it will have to be made up through other revenue sources and may impact the fiscal deficit estimates
Jio Phones may be helping Reliance Jio to growth in non-metro markets
  • Jio’s revenue growth in metros has been just 0.02% as against its non-metro revenue growth of close to 17.87%
  • Both Vodafone and Bharti have been witnessing positive growth in metros and negative growth in non-metros
Jaitley confirms that the government will not need funds from the RBI
  • There had been a controversy over the government asking RBI to transfer part of its reserves to the government
  • Jaitley has clarified that the government does not intend to use the RBI funds for bridging its deficit
Bajaj Finance and HCL Tech to enter Sensex from December 24th
  • The two companies will actually replace Wipro and Adani Ports and SEZ, which are currently part of the Sensex
  • Normally, the index inclusions lead to aggressive ETF and index fund buying from global investors
Indian telcos not too keen to invest money in 5G infrastructure
  • Telecom is currently facing the worst resource crunch after tariffs were sharply beaten down by Jio
  • Government plans to roll out 5G by 2022 but telecom companies may be more keen on deleveraging
After a 3-year hiatus, the Greek problem may be back to roost
  • Greek banks are currently sitting on bad loans to the tune of nearly 50% and have been surviving on EU support
  • Greece already has a deal with EU to delay most of its repayments by 10 years but banks could be the problem
Brent Crude fell below the $60/bbl mark during the week
  • The fall in Brent has been sharp from $86/bbl a little over a month ago after Iran sanctions were diluted
  • Apart from fears of a global slowdown, there are also fears of a major supply glut of oil in the coming year
More than 50% of the ATM machines may be actually unviable in India
  • The warning has been sounded by the Confederation of ATM Industry as costs were going out of hand
  • ATMs became prohibitive on the back of regular hardware and software upgrades and cassette swap method adopted
Dewan Housing undertakes a re-haul of its complete balance sheet
  • After the run on NBFCs, Dewan has taken urgent steps to reduce the maturity mismatch in its lending books
  • It has repaid short-term loans to the tune of Rs.14,000 crore and reduced its dependence on CPs to a negligible level
Kumar Birla raises concerns over the viability of the telecom sector
  • Birla expressed concerns over Rs.30,000 crore blocked up In GST reverse charges and the high spectrum charges
  • Vodafone had recently reported a quarterly loss of Rs.4,973 crore and is planning to cut down on low-value customers
HDFC returns to the Masala Bond market with a $70 million issue
  • HDFC was using this channel after over a year since the government had relaxed taxation on overseas borrowings
  • The funds were raised at an all-in cost of 8.75%, which is nearly 200 bps higher than the rate last year
Goldman Sachs sees double-digit growth return to emerging markets
  • Strong positive stock market returns may return in 2019 after a tepid 2018 as trade war fears are likely to recede
  • Goldman, however, expects most of the Latin American economies and markets to perform better than Asian peers
RBI – Finance Ministry meet concluded on a positive note for both sides
  • For the RBI there was not much dilution of powers as the capital support would be subject to committee scrutiny
  • However, the RBI has agreed to lend a more liberal hand in PCA lending and ensuring NBFC liquidity support
GAIL moves NCLT for rejection of Arcelor’s bid for Essar Steel
  • GAIL is an operational creditor and gets just 5% of its dues while banks will get 80%, which is what GAIL is objecting to
  • Arcelor had recently won the bid to take over Essar Steel after it had made a winning bid of Rs.42,000 crore
RBI net sells dollars worth $18.7 billion in the first half of fiscal 2018-19
  • RBI has been consistently selling dollars in the spot and in futures with a view to supporting the INR at around 74/$
  • This is one of the reasons, the RBI reserves have fallen from $427 billion to a low of $393 billion this fiscal year