Business News at 10:00 am on 19th February, 2024

Let’s begin – The government has begun talks with host of capital-rich countries to explore ways to route larger portions of their abundant pool of patient capital to India to support the country’s economic growth on a durable basis. The move comes in the backdrop of a moderation of public capex growth. “Going forward, government investment shall be a catalyst, not the mainstay,” an official said. With domestic private investments yet to accelerate, the focus is to take proactive steps to attract long-term, low-cost capital from abroad for the infrastructure sectors to sustain economic growth. Talks have been lined up with several countries to reach an understanding with them on mechanisms to channelise their sovereign wealth, pension, and insurance funds. Up Next, Real estate developers have welcomed the recent amendments to the insolvency law facilitating project-wise insolvency and liquidation process in the sector. They feel the new norms would bring a multitude of benefits for various stakeholders, including faster resolutions.

Last week, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India tweaked its regulations to allow the Committee of Creditors to invite separate resolution plans for each real-estate project, rather than dragging the whole firm into insolvency proceedings. On liquidation, the regulator said that allotted real-units units would be kept out of the process, thereby providing relief to homebuyers. Niranjan Hiranandani, managing director, Hiranandani Group told FE: “The recent amendments are beneficial for all stakeholders, including the homebuyers and developers.”

Moving on – In a first-of-its-kind initiative to incentivise farmers for adoption of environmentally sustainable agriculture practices, in India’s rice and wheat growing states, farmers in Punjab and Haryana will be awarded carbon credits soon for adopting practices such as direct seeding and low tillage. The carbon farming programme has been initiated by a private entity Grow Indigo, a joint venture between domestic seed major Mahyco and US-based Indigo. According to Umang Agarwal, head, carbon, Grow Indigo, the audit of the programme has been completed under the carbon standard protocol, which is a global voluntary greenhouse gas reduction programme. Based on certification by Veera, the carbon credit will be awarded to farmers in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, Mid-tier IT firm ITC Infotech, which will almost double its revenue from around $250 million in FY19 to a little less than $500 million by the end of FY24, is preparing for its next milestone – $1 billion revenue-mark in next four to five years, said MD and CEO Sudip Singh in an interaction with FE. Singh, an Infosys veteran who is credited with doubling Infosys engineering services’ revenue from $400 million to $800 million during 2013-2018, has completed five years at ITC Infotech this month. He’s building the momentum for the next milestone of $1 billion by transforming the company, building a next layer of leadership and clinching a handful of multi-million dollar deals from clients.

In other news, The government has decided to extend the benefits under tax remission scheme RoDTEP to export-oriented units and manufacturers in the special economic zones. This will allay the concerns among manufacturing units in SEZs about non-refunded taxes denting their competitive edge in world markets. “After the roll-out of Indian Customs Electronic Data Interchange Gateway in SEZs, the RoDTEP scheme may also be extended to SEZs,” according to an office memorandum of the commerce ministry, reviewed by FE. ICEGATE is the national portal of Indian Customs of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs that provides e-filing services to trade, cargo carriers, and other trading partners.

Moving ahead – SpaceMantra, the only bidder in the resolution plan for Future Retail, has revised its earlier bid to avoid liquidation of the bankrupt firm. “The new bid is substantially higher than the previous one, and the firm has requested the administrator and the Committee of Creditors to relook at the whole process,” a source close to the development said. SpaceMantra, which runs an online marketplace for the construction and interior industry, had offered about Rs 550 crore through an e-voting process that ended on September 30. Many lenders to FRL had termed it a fair price, as it was close to the value of Rs 450 crore arrived at by independent valuers, sources had told FE earlier.

GIFT Nifty indicated that Indian equity indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 may see a lackluster opening on Monday. GIFT Nifty traded up by just 2 points or 0.01% at 22,114.50 indicating a lackluster opening for domestic indices NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex on Monday. Previously, on Friday, the NSE Nifty 50 ended up by 129.95 points or 0.59% to settle at 22,040.70, while the BSE Sensex gained by 376.36 points or 0.52% to 72,426.64. The key stocks to watch in trade are One 97 Communication, Bajaj Auto, Life Insurance Corp, Tata Power, NHPC, Harsha Engineers, ITI and NALCO among others