Business News at 05:30 pm on 18th January, 2024

Let’s begin. In the wake of LTI Mindtree’s disappointing Q3 earnings, its shares witnessed a significant 14% drop in early trade today. The company fell short of Street estimates across key metrics, and cautious remarks from management have triggered concerns among brokerages, foreseeing potential challenges for the IT major in Q4. As of 9:44 am, LTI Mindtree shares were trading at Rs 5,569.20 on the NSE. Notably, trading volumes surged, with 9 lakh shares changing hands, surpassing the one-month daily traded average of 4 lakh shares. Despite posting a 0.6% sequential increase in net profit to Rs 1,169 crore and a 1.2% on-quarter rise in revenue to Rs 9,016 crore in Q3, the company’s operating margin contracted to 15.4% from 16% last quarter.

Over to industry. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited on Thursday said that it will acquire the remaining 21.52 per cent stake in Israel-based Taro Pharmaceutical Industries, which would result in the former acquiring all of the public shares of Taro. The cost of acquisition, the company said, amounted to Rs 2,891.76 crore in cash without interest, amounting to $347.73 million for 8,086,818 shares. Dilip Shanghvi, Managing Director of Sun Pharma, said, quote, “Over the years, with Sun Pharma’s strategic interventions, Taro has remained a key player in the generic dermatology market in a challenging environment. Post completion of the merger, the combined entity will firmly move forward, leveraging its global strengths and capabilities to better serve the needs of patients and healthcare professionals,” unquote.

In some more industry news, The DMI Group announced the acquisition of the ZestMoney platform. DMI Finance, the NBFC arm of DMI, will be a preferred lender on the Zest platform, it said. Through this acquisition, DMI will have the exclusive right to the use of all Zest brands. This acquisition will enable DMI to widen its engagement with current and potential customers by adding the ZestMoney checkout financing platform to its product suite. DMI will also bring its customer base, balance-sheet strength and significant risk-management experience to drive growth across Zest’s online and offline merchant network. DMI is a pan-India financial services platform with core businesses in digital finance, housing finance and asset management.

Meanwhile, Realty firm Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate on Thursday launched 276 luxury homes in Pune with an estimated sales value of around Rs 600 crore. In a statement, the company said it has launched the second phase of its project ‘Golfland’ which is part of a large township ‘VANAHA’ near Bavdhan, West Pune. The project will have 276 homes, available to buyers at prices starting at Rs 1.48 crore. In the first phase, the company had launched 276 homes. The township ‘VANAHA’, spread over 1,000 acres, is a mixed-use development comprising residential, commercial, and retail spaces. To date, the company has sold over 1,800 apartments in this township worth Rs 1,500 crores across mid-segment (Yahavi and Springs) and premium developments (Golfland phase 1).

Moving on. To incentivise the manufacturing sector and generate employment, the government may extend the scope of PLI scheme to include sectors like garments, jewellery and handicrafts in the forthcoming interim Budget, Deloitte said. Currently, Production-Linked Incentive scheme is available for 14 sectors. Deloitte India Partner Rajat Wahi said driving rural income is one of ways to deal with inflation and slack in consumption demand. Wahi told PTI, quote, “Today we have 14 sectors under PLI scheme, but a lot of these sectors do not generate massive employment. Leather, garment, handicraft, jewellery — many of these sectors need PLI scheme to come in because they are the ones which are the highest employment generators. That will help lower income households as well as urban,” unquote.

Next up, technology. Samsung launched the Galaxy S24 series at Unpacked San Jose late last night and, per usual, it has announced the India prices of the devices this morning. The Galaxy S24 price in India will start at Rs 79,999 and the Galaxy S24 Plus at Rs 99,999. The Galaxy S24 Ultra has a starting price of Rs 1,29,999. Pre-bookings for the Galaxy S24 series trio starts today itself. The date of shipping has not been revealed by Samsung at the time of writing. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is getting three colours in India to choose from at launch. These are: Titanium Gray, Titanium Violet, and Titanium Black. As is usually the case, there are some online-exclusive colours as well.

Lastly, the share market. The benchmark equity indices closed in the negative territory. The NSE Nifty 50 closed 109.70 points or 0.51 percent lower to settle at 21,462.25, while the BSE Sensex lost 313.90 points or 0.44% to settle at 71,186.86. The broader indices closed in the red, with losses led by largecap and midcap stocks. Bank Nifty index closed lower by 350.90 points or 0.76% to settle at 45,713.55.