Business Today 11 December 2022

The equity market, it is said, is the barometer of the economy. Not just that, the valuations it accords are indicators of how it views the performance of listed companies. A good example of this is the kind of hard knocks that some of India’s storied start-ups—hugely valued in the private market—got when they were listed on the bourses: think Paytm, Zomato and their ilk. The BT500, the definitive listing of India’s most valuable companies by average market capitalisation (during the period October 2021 to September 2022), is specially significant this year, coming as it does amid enormous uncertainty in the global economic environment, rising interest rates, steep inflation and recessionary headwinds being faced by some of the world’s biggest economies. The top 5 companies in the BT500 rankings of…

SOURCE CMIE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK, STATISTA 18 PER CENT Surge in wheat prices (wholesale) in the past 12 months till November 1 in India ₹36.60 PER KG The retail price of atta on October 31, 2022, compared with ₹30.80 per kg a year ago 106.84 MILLION TONNES Total production of wheat in India—the second-largest producer—in FY22, down 2.50 per cent year-on-year 102.85 MILLION TONNES The average consumption of wheat in India in the past two years till March 31, 2022…

Note: In 1992, the market capitalisation (m-cap) on December 24, 1991, was used; from 1993 to 1996, the m-cap of the financial year ended March was used; for 1997-2001, the average m-cap between April 1 and March 31 was used; for 2002-2016, the average m-cap between April 1 and September 30 was used; for 2017-2021, the average m-cap between October 1 and September 30 was considered. Before 2011, PSUs were listed separately Source: ACE Equity, annual reports of companies 19 THE NUMBER OF COMPANIES THAT GOT LISTED IN THE STUDY PERIOD AND DEBUTED ON THIS YEAR’S BT500 LIST ₹7.3 lakh crore CONSOLIDATED CASH AND CASH BALANCE OF THE BT500 COMPANIES, EXCLUDING BFSI, AGAINST A TOTAL DEBT OF ₹30 LAKH CRORE, AS OF MARCH 31, 2022 ₹10 lakh crore CONSOLIDATED NET…

India’s second-largest pharma company, Aurobindo Pharma, is facing business reputation issues following the arrest of one of its Directors, P. Sarath Chandra Reddy, in the ongoing investigation into the Delhi liquor scam by the Enforcement Directorate. The company has said that Reddy’s arrest is not connected to Aurobindo or its subsidiaries in any way. The company has also been in the news recently over the recall of its medical products in the US market last month.…

THE ARENA OF bids to acquire debt-laden Future Retail is seeing some interesting names. Apart from the Adani Group and Reliance Industries, names such as the DS Group, Dickey Alternative Investment Trust, Shalimar Corporation and Nalwa Steel and Power are also in the fray. In all, there are 16 bidders. Given that Reliance already owns a significant number of the Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Retail’s stores (Big Bazaar being a prominent name), what remains of the company will be interesting to see. For a process that has long been hanging fire, it will likely take some time before a winner emerges.…

GOING BY THE data on HNIs bidding in ongoing IPOs, it is clear that the regulatory clampdown on them availing funding from NBFCs to invest in IPOs is showing its effect: IPOs are seeing more realistic bidding. The HNI portion of Kaynes Technology was subscribed 21.21 times while that of Archean Chemical Industries was subscribed 14.90 times. Though the numbers look decent, they are a fraction of what many IPOs saw last year when the HNI portion of IPOs was subscribed in multiples of hundreds.…