Business News at 05:30 pm on 12th August, 2024

Let’s begin, Amid allegations made by Hindenburg Research about Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trusts benefitting from the employment of Dhaval Buch as Senior Advisor, sources close to the private equity firm said the conclusion is “erroneous”. Buch, who is the husband of Securities and Exchange Board of India chairperson Madhavi Puri Buch, is employed with Blackstone Private Equity. He exclusively advises private equity companies across Asia on procurement and supply chain-related topics, which is his area of expertise. He is not involved with real estate, Reits, capital markets or interface with any regulator on any topic while at Blackstone. While the firm did not want to comment on the issue, the sources said in any case, Buch’s appointment in 2019 pre-dates the Sebi chairperson’s appointment.
Moving to Banking news, with deposit growth still sluggish and the Reserve Bank of India expressing concern over the widening gap between deposits and credit growth, banks have intensified efforts to attract depositors. From leveraging their branch network to launching special fixed deposit schemes and offering debit and credit card rewards, banks are pulling out every strategy from their playbook to raise more deposits. As digital channels are already extensively used in the banking sector, lenders, especially public sector banks, have now turned their attention to leveraging their branch networks to boost deposits. Digital channels allow banks to reach higher number of customers but not enough volumes, say bankers. Banks are attracting new customers by giving reward points band incentives.
Over to personal finance, Individuals, especially senior citizens, should take an add-on policy that covers pre-existing diseases such as asthma, hypertension, diabetes from day one by paying an extra premium. This will ensure comprehensive coverage for health conditions that require regular check-ups, treatment and reduce the out-of-pocket expenses. Pre-existing diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are now quite common across all age groups due to sedentary lifestyles. The coverage for such pre-existing diseases eventually starts after a waiting period of three to four years. Recently, the insurance regulator has reduced the waiting period for pre-existing diseases in health insurance to 36 months from 48 months. Insurance companies cannot reject any claim on the grounds of pre-existence of ailment after three years of issuing the policy.
Now update urban labour survey. The statistics ministry is likely to start releasing the monthly Periodic Labour Force Survey-Urban, from January 2025, as it aims to increase the frequency of employment-related data collection and dissemination, official sources said. However, this would entail a substantial reduction in sample size, they added. Quote For the urban PLFS exercise, we visit around 45,000 household, this will reduce, as otherwise, we won’t be able to complete the exercise on time unquote. Currently, the urban PLFS is released on a quarterly basis, but with a lag, which undermines the utility of the survey for policy makers. For the January-March 2024 urban PLFS exercise, a total of 44,598 households and 169,459 persons were surveyed, which is similar to the sample size of the surveys earlier.
Next in power sector, India’s power demand is estimated to have risen by 7% to 150 billion units in July from the corresponding period of last fiscal owing to higher consumption in rain-deficient northern states. In June, the power demand rose by 8.6% from last year. The demand for power during the first four months of the current fiscal 24-25 also registered an increase of 10% over the year ago period, CRISIL said. However, power demand in other regions moderated in July as the monsoon coverage helped in lowering the temperatures. Data showed that power demand in the southern region rose by 4% while it declined a marginal 1% in the western region. Rainfall in Maharashtra and Gujarat was 63% and 45% higher than normal.
Latest update on agriculture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday released 109 weather-resilient, high-yielding, and bio-fortified seed varieties of agricultural crops developed by institutes affiliated to Indian Council for Agricultural Research. These ‘breeder seeds’ varieties approved by the Central Variety Release Committee of the agriculture ministry for the 15 agro-climatic zones in the country, are expected to be available for large-scale cultivation to farmers over the next two to three years, officials said. The cultivation of these crops are expected to help mitigate the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture output. While the new varieties are also seen bringing down cost of production for the farmers, officials said they have potential to enhance agricultural productivity while preserving local biodiversity.
Lastly, let’s have a look at Stocks that are in focus today. These are Reliance Industries, Aurobindo Pharma, ONGC, Bajaj Consumer, Bank of Baroda. Reliance Industries recently made news for a significant workforce reduction whereas Aurobindo Pharma said its consolidated net profit increased 61% year on year to Rs 919 crore in Q1FY25, aided by strong sales across markets.