Innholdsfortegnelse for 22-Aug-21 i Business Today

Ever since the pandemic hit India, those following the financial markets have often been baffled by the huge disconnect between what is going on in the equity markets, and the devastation caused by Covid-19. The one segment of the economy which has seemingly taken the pandemic in its stride has been the stock markets. After an initial setback in March 2020, when the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex hit its calendar year low of 25,639, the market has been on a roll, hitting its all-time high of 53,291 points in mid-July this year. This runaway rise has led to another phenomenon — the advent of thousands of new investors into the equity markets, hungry for information and advice on how and where to invest. Consider the figures: broking firms saw a…

↘ Automobile sales to dealerships staged a recovery in June, led by passenger vehicles, due to easing of lockdown restrictions in various states as India exits the second Covid-19 wave ↘ Automakers sold 2,31,633 passenger vehicles, a jump of 163 per cent over May and 119 per cent over June 2020 ↘ On a sequential basis, two-wheeler volumes tripled in June, while they doubled for tractors as well as commercial vehicles, and grew nearly 7.5 times for three-wheelers Sequential numbers compared to May; Source: SIAM…

APL Apollo is India’s largest manufacturer of structured steel tubes. Like most companies, it was hit hard by the first wave of the pandemic, with sales halving and profits being wiped out completely in the April-June 2020 quarter. But, it was a blip. What followed was a relentless cycle of market share gain, so much so that the company will end FY22 with 55 per cent share of the steel tubes market, up from 40 per cent in FY20. Its operating cash flows have doubled during this period. Many of its competitors, particularly in the unorganised sector, have either shut shop or curtailed operations significantly. Such a sharp rise in market share in just two years is nothing short of staggering. Yet, APL is not alone. Strong leaders in practically every…

We have 33 supermarkets at the moment. The target is 1,500 in five years.” S.B. Jayaraj, who is gung-ho about his organisation’s plans for Kerala, is not just another retailer. He is the general secretary of the Kerala chapter of Sahakar Bharati — a pan-India body that aims at strengthening the cooperative movement in India, and an affiliate of the RSS, the ideological parent of the ruling BJP. Jayaraj has just got Ernakulam-based Bharath Agro Processing and Marketing Cooperative (BAMCO) registered as a multistate cooperative society. The first supermarket under the new entity has been opened recently. With over two dozen Grameen Samrudhi stores mentored by Sahakar Bharati since 2017 also being brought under the BAMCO umbrella, the society is all set to have its presence felt in the state.…

The Amitabh Fan Kalpen Parekh, President of DSP Mutual Fund, which manages assets worth over ₹1 lakh crore, is a movie buff. Though his day begins and ends with thinking and reading about business, investing and money, he watches movies late at night when everyone else in the house is asleep. An ardent Amitabh Bachchan fan, Parekh has seen Sholay and Coolie more than 100 times each. “I keep watching the same movies again and again… It takes me back to my childhood memories,” he says. Agneepath, Main Aazad Hoon, Sharaabi and Khuda Gawah are some of his other favourites. An active Twitter user, Parekh loves to provide simple and practical investing fundas to his followers on social media. Sometimes, his tweets include investment lessons from Amitabh’s movies as well.…

↘ Retail sales in India tumbled 50 per cent in June 2021, compared to June 2019, a year before the pandemic, according to the Retailers Association of India ↘ The industry body’s latest survey showed a steep drop in all major discretionary categories, with the biggest being a 66 per cent slide in sports goods ↘ Even the food and grocery category saw a 7 per cent drop, though it was the only category to notch a single-digit decline ↘ The declines were more or less equal nation-wide, spread between the North zone’s 43 per cent drop and the East’s 55 per cent fall RETAIL SALES (June '21 vs June '19 % change) Source: Retailers Association of India…

As on date of draft offer (July 16, 2021) India’s startup ecosystem is hogging the stock market limelight. Investors have barely digested food-delivery company Zomato’s initial public offering (IPO), and soon they will be served another. This time it will be a super-sized one from Paytm, India’s largest fintech and the second-biggest startup by valuation. The numbers in the IPO prospectus filed by One97 Communications Ltd, which runs Paytm, are staggering. The 11-year-old company plans to raise $2.2 billion, or ₹16,600 crore, which would make it India’s biggest-ever IPO, displacing Coal India’s ₹15,000-crore offering nearly a decade back. The IPO is expected to value Paytm at between $25 billion and $30 billion. That is not only more than half the market value of State Bank of India, India’s largest bank, but…

↘ Long-term fund-raising by non-banking enterprises dropped to a three-year low of ₹1.27 lakh crore in Q1 of Fy22 ↘ Their fund-raising had stayed above ₹2 lakh crore for the past five quarters and topped ₹3 lakh crore in the previous quarter ↘ In the latest quarter, ₹25,790 crore, or roughly 20 per cent of the total, was raised against fresh equity PRIMARY MARKET FUND MOBILISATION BY NON-BANKING COMPANIES (`000 Cr) Numbers rounded off; Source: RBI…

↘ Urban men lost the most jobs during the second wave of Covid-19, while urban women suffered the least, a reversal of the trend seen in the first wave ↘ Urban men, who hold about 28 per cent of total jobs, accounted for 26.3 per cent of job losses between March 2020 and March 2021. This went up to 30.3 per cent in the March-June 2021 period ↘ Urban women, who account for about 3 per cent jobs, had accounted for 38.7 per cent job losses in the first wave. This fell to 0.11 per cent in the 2nd wave Source: CMIe…

INDIA’S BIGGEST TRADE PARTNERS (Figures in $ billion) BIGGEST IMPORT SOURCES (Figures in $ billion) BIGGEST EXPORT DESTINATIONS (Figures in $ billion) TOP 5 IMPORTS FROM CHINA TOP 5 EXPORTS TO CHINA India And China: Shipment Details OVERALL TRADE (in $ billion) TRADE DEFICIT (in $ billion) GROWTH IN TRADE (in %)…

IT TAKES INDIAN ORGANISATIONS nearly 228 hours, or nine-and-a-half days, on average to detect a cybersecurity breach, nearly double the global average of 117 hours, according to a survey by US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike last year. Couple that with the fact that about 75 per cent of Indians — the highest among all countries — surveyed admitted their organisation suffered a ransomware attack in the last year, and it paints a dismal picture of the state of digital security in Indian companies. It’s not too surprising then that nearly every other day there is news about a cyber incursion. This year’s list alone includes confectioner Haldiram’s, hyperlocal concierge service Dunzo, Air India, and e-grocer BigBasket. One of the easiest ways to infiltrate an enterprise’s computer network is through an employee’s…