Business News at 05:30 pm on 5th July, 2024

HDFC Bank’s share price fell more than 3% in early trading on Friday after the private lender reported a sequential decline in both advances and deposits in its Q1 business update. At one point in time, the share price of HDFC Bank fell 4,23% to an intra-day low of Rs 1654 per share on NSE. The bank, which is the largest private sector lender in the country, saw its advances drop 0.8% quarter-on-quarter to Rs 24.87 lakh crore at the end of June 2024, down from Rs 25.1 lakh crore at the end of March 2024. This decline was primarily due to the continued shedding of the low-yielding corporate book, including that of the erstwhile HDFC Ltd.

Meanwhile, ICRA has said that driven by healthy demand from the infrastructure and housing sectors, cement volumes are expected to rise by a healthy 7-8 percent in FY2025. In terms of the first quarter of FY25 performance, ICRA assesses a muted growth at 2-3 percent on-year due to a slowdown in construction activity because of the General Elections. The elections, heatwave situation, and excess rainfall in some states that had impacted the demand, per a report by InCred Equities, also led to a decline in cement prices after a marginal price hike in April. Pan India cement prices have fallen by Rs 3-4 /bag month-on-month in May 2024 and by Rs 4-5 to date in the first quarter of FY25F, InCred Equities stated.

Over to industry. Raymond Limited has announced the vertical demerger of its real estate business into its wholly owned subsidiary, Raymond Realty Limited. Upon completion of this demerger, Raymond Ltd and Raymond Realty Limited will operate as separate listed entities within the Raymond Group post all statutory approvals. The new entity will seek automatic listing on stock exchanges and according to the scheme of arrangement, each Raymond Ltd shareholder will receive 1 share of RRL for every 1 share held in Raymond Limited. Raymond’s real estate business has achieved scale, reporting revenue of Rs 1,593 crore, up 43 percent year-on-year and EBITDA of Rs 370 crore in FY24, and this positions it well to chart its growth path as a separate entity.

Next up, is technology. Telecom giant Bharti Airtel has strongly denied allegations of a security breach following reports that a significant amount of customer data had been compromised. Rumours have circulated suggesting that details of 37.5 crores Airtel customers, including their phone numbers, email addresses, residential addresses, and Aadhaar numbers, were allegedly available for sale on the dark web. An Airtel spokesperson said, quote, “There has been an ongoing report alleging that Airtel customer data has been compromised. This is nothing short of a desperate attempt to tarnish Airtel’s reputation by vested interests. We have done a thorough investigation and can confirm that there has been no breach whatsoever from Airtel systems,” unquote.

Moving on. After Instagram and Facebook getting ‘blue tick verification’, WhatsApp seems to be planning to change its green checkmark to blue. Reportedly, WhatsApp Business will replace the green checkmark with a blue one for verified businesses. According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is rolling out a new update where the green checkmark might turn Blue. In addition to this, all verified channels will also receive the updated checkmark. As reported by WABetaInfo, the proposed update aims to make the verification badges consistent across all Meta platforms. The blue tick seems to be quite similar to the blue checkmarks on Instagram and Facebook.

Over to market. India’s leading shipbuilders, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, Cochin Shipyard, and Garden Reach Shipbuilders, have reached unprecedented heights, with their market capitalisation collectively increasing by nearly Rs 1.5 lakh crore in 2024. This surge follows as media reports earlier reported, highlighting an initial increase of Rs 90,000 crore. Remarkably, in just 13 trading sessions since that report, these companies have added over Rs 60,000 crore to their market capitalisation. Mazagon Dock’s shares have surged 151% in 2024. Starting the year with a market capitalisation of Rs 46,000 crore, the company’s value has more than doubled to over Rs 1.15 lakh crore.

The benchmark equity indices ended Friday’s trading session in the mixed territory. The NSE Nifty 50 gained 21.70 points or 0.09% to settle at 24,323.10, while the BSE Sensex dipped 53.07 points or 0.07% to 79,996.60. Bank Nifty index ended lower by 443.35 points or 0.83% to settle at 52,660.35. The broader indices ended in mixed territory, with gain led by Largecap and Midcap stocks. Energy and Pharma stocks outperformed among the other sectoral indices while Financial Services and Banking stocks shed. ONGC, Reliance Industries, State Bank Of India, Britannia Industries, and Cipla were the top gainers on the NSE Nifty 50, while the laggards includes HDFC Bank, Titan Company, LTIMindtree, Tata Steel, an IndusInd Bank. The Indian Volatility Index (India VIX) closed down by 1.49 % at 12.66.