Business News at 05:30 pm on 6th November 2023

Let’s begin. Cello World’s shares listed at 28% premium over the IPO price on bourses on Monday. The share debuted at Rs 829 on the NSE and Rs 831 on the BSE, as compared to the issue price of Rs 648. The investors have made a profit of Rs 181 per share as the scrip gave 28% returns to investors on the listing. Ahead of the listing, Cello World shares’ GMP rose 24.69%, surpassing the upper end of the share price on offer, indicating a favorable debut on the bourses. The IPO was subscribed to 41.69 times overall, with the retail portion subscribed 3.21 times. Despite the premium valuation, the IPO received a positive response from investors.

Meanwhile, L&T Construction on Monday announced that its Buildings & Factories & Transportation Infrastructure businesses have secured a large order in the range of Rs 2500 crore- Rs 5000 crore, from the GMR Visakhapatnam International Airport Limited for the engineering, procurement and construction of the greenfield Bhogapuram International Airport at Bhogapuram in Andhra Pradesh. The project will initially be developed to handle 6 million passengers per annum capacity to be further enhanced to a capacity to handle 12 MPA, the company said in a regulatory filing. Larsen & Toubro is presently executing the construction works of major airports at Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Navi Mumbai. The order further reinforces L&T’s capability to deliver a greenfield airport project end-to-end and affirms the Company’s EPC capabilities.

Moving on. Protean eGov Technologies IPO opened for public subscription today and will close on Wednesday, November 8, 2023. The bidding for anchor investors concluded on Friday, wherein the company collected Rs 143.53 crore. The price band for its public issue at Rs 752-792 per equity share of face value Rs 10 each. At the upper end of the price band, the company’s promoters and shareholders sought to raise Rs 490.33 crore from the IPO. Ahead of the public issue, EMS shares’ GMP rose 13.89% over the upper end of the share price on offer. The IPO comprises an OFS with promoters offloading 6,191,000 shares of Rs 10 aggregating up to Rs 490.33 crore.

Over to industry. Varun Beverages Ltd, the second-largest franchisee of PepsiCo, released its third quarter earnings with profit at Rs 501.07 crore, up 31.5 per cent in comparison to Rs 381.04 crore during the same period last year. It posted revenue from operations for the quarter ended September 2023 at Rs 3937.76 crore, up 21.2 per cent as against Rs 3248.31 crore during the corresponding quarter of last year, driven by an increase in realization per case primarily in international markets. The company EBITDA stood at Rs 883 crore, up 48 per cent on-year. The company stated that the PAT increase during Q3 CY2023 was driven by growth in revenue from operations and improvement in margins.

On to technology. OpenAI’s much-anticipated developer conference is just around the corner, and it appears a major ChatGPT update may be on the cards. The Decoder reported that leaked screenshots and videos have unveiled a custom chatbot creator that controls the power of GPT-4. This advanced chatbot creator comes with some features that have already made ChatGPT so popular, such as web browsing and data analysis. In addition to these features, it seems OpenAI will introduce a marketplace where users can share their chatbots or explore those crafted by others.

In the healthcare segment, Pharmaceutical company Divi’s Laboratories Limited on Monday recorded profit for the quarter ended September 2023 at Rs 348 crore, down 29.4 percent as against Rs 493 crore during the corresponding quarter of FY23, missing estimates. It posted revenue from operations at Rs 1909 crore, up 2.9 percent in comparison to Rs 185 crore during the second quarter of FY23. According to a CNBC TV18 poll, Divi’s Laboratories was expected to post Q2 profit at Rs 410.8 crore and revenue for the quarter in review was estimated to come at Rs 1886 crore. For the current quarter, the company has a forex gain of Rs 11 crore as against a gain of Rs 31 crore during the corresponding quarter of last year.

Lastly, let’s see how the share market performed today. Benchmark indices ended higher for the third consecutive session on November 6 with Nifty above 19,400. At close, the Sensex was up 594.91 points or 0.92 percent at 64,958.69, and the Nifty was up 181.20 points or 0.94 percent at 19,411.80. About 2378 shares advanced, 1285 shares declined, and 164 shares unchanged. Biggest gainers on the Nifty included, Divis Laboratories, Hero MotoCorp, Eicher Motors, Larsen & Toubro and Axis Bank, while losers were SBI, HUL, Tata Motors, Cipla and Titan Company. Except PSU Bank, all other sectoral indices ended in the green with pharma, capital goods, metal, oil & gas, power and realty up 1 percent each.