Innholdsfortegnelse for 18-Oct-20 i Business Today

THUMBS DOWN Sharp Rise in Rating Downgrades ASSETS TO TURN BAD Trend of falling NPAs likely to get reversed THEY ALL FALL DOWN Sharp dip in economic growth is fully reflected in India Inc. financials THE REALLY STRESSED BSE-listed companies with high debt (>₹ 1,000 cr), operating losses (PBIT) and low interest coverage ratio. All data is standalone and for FY20; Source: Ace Equity…

The medical aesthetics industry in India has garnered considerable attention and acceptance over the past few decades. A fast-paced and modern lifestyle, and an exponential increase in the earning potential of the people have fueled the need to improve one's personality holistically. In today's India, people's perception of beauty is coupled with overall well-being. The desire to look young, attractive, fit, and contemporary, and to combat the ill-effects of lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity has increased the demand of several aesthetic procedures such as skin rejuvenation, noninvasive laser therapies for hair removal, body contouring, cellulite reduction, etc. Hence, scores of Indians have moved away from conventional methods for enhancing one's beauty and embraced a wide variety of technology-based aesthetic solutions offered by the medical aesthetics industry. The Indian aesthetics industry…

We Went by the 80:20 Rule Varun Berry, MD, Britannia It's important to adapt to things. It's important that we don't get our working set in stone. For instance, street food vendors have gone out of business, restaurants have gone out of business, there is a lot more consumption happening at home. Never could we have imagined that, in a situation like this, rural would do better than urban. Paradigms are changing. We are adapting to them. If done well, even challenging situations such as these can become opportunities. We used to think we have to work only from office but we worked well from homes. Our protocols were set, we would hold virtual meetings and all the bookish ideas that we need to travel, that we need to be…

Federal Bank found a silver lining in the cloud two years ago. This was a period when the financial services industry was undergoing a huge transformation, triggered by a host of fintech companies, right from Google’s payment solutions and home-grown Paytm to tens of somewhat smaller start-ups. As use of fintech was becoming an important part of banking, the Kerala-based scheduled private bank wanted to be ahead of the curve by having resilient open banking with help of an API (application protocol interface) on which fintech partners could connect without hassles. An API is a computing interface which defines interactions between multiple software intermediaries. This was a big change for the traditional bank, which till then had an ad-hoc, on-premise, solution. After looking at a lot of options, it decided…

Music touches everyone’s life. But if you are from a family of professionally trained musicians, the relationship with music can be much more serious than that. Rajmohan Krishnan, Principal Founder and Managing Director, Entrust Family Office, used to attend musical concerts with family. “When music is part of your family's dinner table discussions, you do develop an interest in it.” Krishnan briefly learned carnatic music, trying his hands at violin, mridangam and carnatic vocal, but couldn’t continue as education took precedence over music. “Professional training may not have taken off but music was part of my life. I used to meet musicians, trying to understand their lives, developing a bond with them,” he says. His involvement with music led him to launch an NGO, Ekatvam Trust, which gives budding musicians…

The only man who sticks closer to you in adversity than a friend is a creditor,” 62-year-old Harsh Goenka, Chairman of RPG Enterprises, quotes a famous line to describe the current predicament of corporate India whose debt in stressed sectors amounts to ₹37.72 lakh crore, nearly 38 per cent of all loans given by the banking sector. The magnitude of stress is akin to Black Swan events such as the global financial crisis of 2008 or the Great Depression of 1929 when thousands of companies had to file for bankruptcy. India Inc., already under pressure due to several quarters of falling GDP growth, and dealt a severe blow by recent lockdowns, is staring at massive ratings downgrade and loan defaults. The reason: Its capacity to service debt is weakening due…

Ramesh Iyer, Managing Director, Mahindra Finance, was pleasantly surprised to know that his team had disbursed 30,000 vehicle loans in June, a huge increase from April and May when business was almost zero. “We have opened 1,100 rural branches and there are footfalls and enquiries about tractor and car loans like before,” says Iyer, admitting that some part of this could be pent-up demand also. “Through April and May, customers took advantage of the loan moratorium, but now they are beginning to pay up. They are requesting us to bring down the instalment amount. Can you give us a ₹8,000/10,000 per month EMI instead of ₹12,000 is what they are asking for.” Besides, there is also demand for additional short-term loans. “They had borrowed money during the lockdown. Now they…

India’s quest to become self-reliant in telecom equipment began as early as 2012 when the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) came out with a notification to promote domestically manufactured telecom products due to security issues with foreign equipment. Over the years, successive notifications were issued by DoT, Ministry of Electronics and IT and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade but government enterprises – on which these rules applied – found a way out to avoid giving contracts to domestic vendors in favour of foreign players such as Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson and Nokia. But things have changed now. The cross-border tension with China has led to a series of important developments over the past few months. To begin with, the government’s policy think-tank, NITI Aayog, conducted a meeting in early…

As the head of Corporate Affairs and Strategy for Diageo India, Abanti Sankaranarayanan’s task is to deal with complex challenges of the alcohol industry such as high taxation and prohibition, while steering the company’s strategy execution. In her spare time, Abanti likes to spend time with family and friends and finds her zen zone in cooking. Non-vegetarian South Indian coastal food is her specialty. Also, being married to a Malayalee, she has mastered the Saadya feast. Saadya consists of over 19 traditional vegetarian dishes and is served on a plantain leaf. Covid-19 has provided her more opportunity to cook at home than ever before, says Abanti. “I like to set out a good table and find it very fulfilling when people enjoy the food I make.”…

In his book, Principles, Roy Dalio says he learnt Transcendental Meditation after the Beatles studied the practice at an ashram in Rishikesh during the band’s visit to India in 1968. “Transcendental Meditation has probably been the singlemost important reason for whatever success I have had,” Dalio, Founder and Co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates, had earlier said in an interview. Bridgewater is the largest hedge fund in the world with more than $138 billion in assets under management. “It helps slow things down so that I can act calmly, even in the face of chaos, just like a ninja in a street fight,” he once wrote in a social media post. In fact, when Bridgewater was on the brink of collapse due to a bet that went horribly wrong, Dalio turned to…