Business Today 25-Jul-21

Iconic firms can often be at odds with the stock markets. Particularly, when they are engaged in the classic tussle between delivering quarterly profits and ploughing back for the long term. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos thumbed down analysts for a decade before things turned around at the e-tailer. But CEOs — especially those running publicly listed firms — can rarely stand up to such pressure exerted by the markets. They either give in to the need to deliver short-term results, or delist their firms, just to avoid the prying eyes of analysts and investors. Michael Dell of Dell Inc. did the latter. ITC Chairman Sanjiv Puri is in the midst of one of those tussles with the restless stock market. Four years into the job, his new businesses haven’t matured enough…

SAVINGS MODERATED FROM A PEAK OF 21% IN Q1… … AND RATIO OF BANK DEPOSITS TO GDP FELL TO 3.2%… … WHILE LIFE INSURANCE FUNDS OF HOUSEHOLDS ROSE TO ₹1.5 LAKH CR… … AND FLOW IN HOUSEHOLD FINANCIAL LIABILITIES DROPPED MARGINALLY…

↘ The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has announced minimum support price (MSP) for kharif crops for 2021-22. The steepest increase has been in pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds. Paddy has seen a moderate 3.9 per cent rise. This is aimed at encouraging crop diversification away from paddy and wheat ↘ The highest absolute increase has been in sesamum (til) at ₹452 per quintal. This was followed by tur (arhar) and urad (black gram) at ₹300 per quintal each ↘ MSP of ragi has more than tripled between 2011 and 2021. MSP of other millets such as jowar and bajra has also risen significantly…

↘ Cargo traffic at India’s major ports grew 29.5 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in April 2021. One reason is the low base of last year. The ports handled 61,528 thousand tonnes cargo during the month as compared to 47,506 thousand tonnes in April 2020 ↘ Major commodities whose traffic grew are petroleum, oil & lubricants (6.5 per cent), coal (10.5 per cent) and iron ore (91.7 per cent) CARGO TRAFFIC AT MAJOR PORTS (Y-o-Y % Change)…

Sliding Confidence BCI Has Been Below 50 For Several Quarters BCI by Sector BCI by Size Macro Details Inflation rises CPI Inflation (Y-o-Y %) Industrial production a mixed bag But exports up month-on-month * NSO has stated that it would not be appropriate to compare the IIP of April and May 2020 with indices of earlier months. The growth rates in the tabulation are calculated by CMIE from the index numbers. Covid-19 has hit the country’s economy hard. Ac-cording to provisional data released by the National Statistical Office, India’s gross domes-tic product (GDP) contracted 7.3 per cent in FY21, the biggest dip since 1947. The second wave of the pandemic has affected all segments of the economy. As a result, corporate sentiment took a beating in the June quarter. On…

When Sanjiv Puri took over as Chairman and MD of ITC from Y.C. Deveshwar, his mandate was clear — carry forward the vision of transforming the cigarette com-pany into a diversified consumer-centric conglomerate. ITC’s dependence on cigarettes had begun to dent its stock market performance even during Deveshwar’s tenure. In his 21-year stint as Chairman and CEO, ITC entered many consumer categories, including staples, snacks, bis-cuits and personal care. By the time he hung up his boots, the FMCG business was a sizeable ₹10,500 crore. Under Puri, the FMCG business is now almost ₹15,000 crore. FY21 has been one of the best years for the non-cigarette FMCG business with EBITDA margins at 9 per cent, up 180 basis points over FY20. “Our segment EBITDA margins have improved by 640 basis…