Companies and Markets

Lighthouse India Fund III, an affiliate of Lighthouse Advisors, is investing over Rs 250 crore to acquire a minority stake in Aqualite Industries, one of India's leading footwear companies.

Aqualite offers more than 6,500 SKUs in hawai, non-hawai and shoe product categories. The products are sold under several sub-brands, under the umbrella of ‘Aqualite’. The company operates through its manufacturing units located across Haryana and Rajasthan. It has a pan-India distribution network of 35,000 retailers, with significant presence in north and east India.

The Sensex and Nifty-50 closed in the red as the crude oil price continue to move up with Brent crude hovering in the range of $61.70 to 63.58 per barrel and rupee weakened further during intra-day trade before closing at 70.49 against the dollar.

The Sensex closed at 36,134.31 down by 106.69 point or 0.29 per cent while Nifty-50 closed at 10,869.50 down by 14.25 point or 0.13 per cent. Broader market indices closed flat with BSE Mid-cap down by 0.07 per cent and small cap up by 0.14 per cent.

The government will not participate in LIC’s open offer to acquire 51 per cent stake in the bank, paving the way for the state life insurance major to have majority control. LIC’s open offer to purchase 26 per cent shares of IDBI Bank opened on 3 December and will close on 14 December, IDBI Bank on Tuesday said on a filing to the exchanges.

In October, LIC announced an open offer for acquiring 26 per cent of equity in IDBI Bank at a price of Rs 61.73 per share, entailing total payout of over Rs 12,602 crore.

Ahead of the monetary policy, India’s bond market rallied on expectations that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may hold interest rates on Wednesday. The 10-year benchmark yield softened by 5 basis points to close at 7.574 on Tuesday. The 10-year yield had closed at 7.626 previously.

The six-member MPC, headed by RBI governor Urjit Patel, started its three-day meet on Monday and would announce its decisions on Wednesday. This would be the fifth bi-monthly monetary policy review of the current financial year.

Non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) stocks made further gains on Tuesday, expecting more liquidity improvement measures from the Reserve Bank of India at its December monetary policy review that will conclude on Wednesday.

NBFC stocks had rallied on Monday too after Reserve Bank of India last week relaxed guidelines on securitisation transactions for NBFCs. Reports released recently also said the liquidity situation was better now than it was in October, which is good news for the stressed Non-banking finance companies.

The Uday Kotak-headed board of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) is mulling to make over 65 per cent employees redundant in order to tackle the severe operational cash flow crisis being faced by the debt-laden infra conglomerate.

The temporary relaxation of securitisation norms for NBFCs would largely benefit only home loan and loan against property in the book of the companies. The RBI had relaxed the norms temporarily to ease the liquidity among NBFCs.

NBFCs can now securitise loans of more than five-year maturity after holding those for six months on their books. Earlier, they had to hold these assets for at least one year. The relaxation on the minimum holding period will be allowed when the NBFC retains 20 per cent of the book value of these loans.

Yes Bank on Monday announced appointment of TS Vijayan, former Irdai chairman, as an additional director for five years with immediate effect.

The private sector lender is grappling with governance as well as non-performing asset issues and has seen resignations of three independent directors, including chairman Ashok Chawla, in the recent past.

The Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA) has elected Dalmia Cement (Bharat) managing director and CEO Mahendra Singhi as its new President.

Singhi takes over from the outgoing President Shailendra Chouksey, the CMA said in a statement.

“India is on the cusp of great growth and infrastructure development. The Indian cement industry is at a significant moment of its history and I look forward to leading the association towards a sustainable global future,” Singhi said.

Singhi has earlier served as President of Rajasthan Manufacturers Association.

Bringing relief to thermal power plants owned by Tata, Adani and Essar groups, the Gujarat government passed an order to allow pass-through of higher cost of coal to end consumers, a source said.

The Supreme Court had earlier ruled against any compensatory tariff for Tata Power Company, Adani Power (4,600 MW Mundra) and Essar Power (1,320 MW Salaya) plants to allow pass-through of higher cost of imported coal.