The Fixed Income markets are still spiralling yields, esp in India where liquidity is going to come back in a while, but what the %X is the matter with the equities business. It seems the buyers are actually going from door to door nulling previous transactions and creating fresh new ones generating nothing but brokerage( if there is such charged to them) while 2009 was wasted on issuers who raised rnearly INR 40,000 Crores for public coffers and a similar amount for retail businesses from tourism to gymnasiums and pizza, the secondary markets are rather taking all the jumps and starts on the way to the elusive 20k ( the new 22k targets will now start appearing on research billboards, 18K having come and stayed. The hiccups have traded me out of the market and quite a few others as volumes tank after a rather happy open in July. As you can see from the previous post July was a very happy event with everyone buying, but this month has already witnessed scaling down of almost all positions in leading infra stockk like RELINFRA and GMR Infra ( who has just sold a $200m stake in subsidiary GMR airports) IDFC produced some sterling results, midcap infra got a big boost in July from FII build ups and similar things happened in much of Pharma, Auto and now in a week the cable stocks that are rising would come undone. Seems markets just bother aboout when buyers have completed their upticking and tank back to the day that Jehova made his dictum for the world to move it@!
Friday, August 6, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Indian Media & Entertainment Slices: Advertising
Advertising business in the country moved up a few quick climbs up the ladder, with Tv revenues moving to $10.6 billion in 2010 and Publishing moving into its place at $5 billion based on E&Y/PWC estimates that do a scan of the observable media at any point Radio is finally becoming a viable medium with $347 million in advertising revenues alone and Outdoor to $456 million.
IL&FS gets big shoes | Advantage zyaada
IL&FS started its media friendly notations early in 2010 with news of it getting its infrastructure portfolios into active play and getting ready for supporting the India fund and other drives to run PE into infrastructure and the larger deals that are now happening inthe PE spacee. Today's mint also mentions its new acquisition of $440 million or INR 2068 Crore Saffron PE fund. While larger funds mean lower values being ind emand instead of the 2-20 regime much in focus always in the industry. IIMl is also a listed providing it the option to access retail equity.
IL&FS Investment Managers currently run $1.6 billion in real estate out of its $2.8 billion corpus and only $700 million in infrastructure and current conversations around the industry continue to focus on construction and related stocks in the midcap space like IRB and IVRCL. The mint story mentions the earlier pruning in no. of funds in 1998 and the 2001 dot bust but PE consolidation is much a function of changing administrative structures outside the running funds and the onl change will be in the quantum of funds available and the number of deals taking place.
While banks also face curbs in real estate lending real estate PE has also found very few sponsors till date because of the lack of exit esp in a downturn.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Tayal manages to import bailout economics | Advantage zyaada
Or, How the economic valuation at market prices has thrown the markets in disarray
It's very satisfying, though a little strangely, to note the market reaction to Bank of Rajasthan's final pricing for purchase by ICICI Bank. First let me get some mint writers and other acknowledgements out of the way. You will soon note that Chanda Kochchar would be asked and will reply in much the same manner on Television soon when she makes her whistlestop tour of the CNBC, NDTV and the rest of the dog and pony show.
Frankly, despite a very casual approach to accounting rules and a general laxity in willingness to enforce the law was , much to sadden my other banking colleagues, not the bete noire of the Bank of Rajasthan way of doing business. It was just another thing they did for the ethos and wealth saving strategies they lived by and there are a lot of these reasons why these old pvt sector banks have never been admitted to the 'main street' in Indian Finance. I would stop short at romanticising them however and just stop at the fact that their 500 branches bring a high amount of business to ICICI Bank's book of INR 3.6 Trillion. BoR's assets of INR 17k crores or $4.25 billion are rich in value with a low NPA of 1% and thus most Financial Analysts have given the valuation of 4.22 BOR shares for 1 ICICI share the green signal.
SEBI maintains that Tayals hold 55% in the bank and that would make them owners of nearly 1.87 crore ICICI Bank shares from new dilution by ICICI Bank, amounting to around 1.75% stake in the bank. ICICI Bank found it economic as always ( i can venture, they have it penned down in the guidelines) to invest in this deal on a 100% stock swap basis.
The rest is rather tiring and much will unfurl on its own in the next few days as the Tayals vie for media attention with Greece in the Indian context. Behold however, that the market, and much rightly, tries to bring down the ICICI Bank valuation to the paper terms of around $11 per share that is the value imputed from the ratio and thus 50% lower than the prices on BSE, NSE and the NYSE.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Kotak Bank: These are a few of our favorite scams
It is supposedly results season, Financial reforms have been on in this country for almost 20 years and Kotak is announcing results on May 12. Just when will people appreciate the capacity of the Indian public, Indian managers and indian investors to absorb and run an entire scam along the same parameter, that has been successfully charted for the same two decades..IPO Applications, the second coming of benami investors and non existent demat accounts, the Ketan Parikh phenomenon and much more.
Then why are we complaining? We managed to create a futures market in a 1000 Cr MCap MindTree for which we even caught the perps in small town dominant Rajasthan, we played with fire on online brokerages till ASBA came back and now when we list IPOs in seven days and don't have to pay commissions on our mutual funds, we seem to have frozen up completely in keeping markets liquidity.
And in that environment, Kotak is well within its rights ( to find the right scam, the right spoon ) to cover its losses in all this free market lafda and sleep over results for 8 weeks since the year closing. Not surprisingly the only other big banking and finance corp taking its time to report results is HDFC that is reporting on May 5, almost doing a favor by telling you about itself, Kotak deciding to take the lead to be the supreme last one to report results on May 12. It's a shame.
And the lack of buzz and action in Kotak and ICICI bang on from where we put the ball a year and six months back here. Also the next scam will be in "over the counter" banking or the good old relationship manager - teller - customer triangulation. And there is another one unearthed today as the proud owner of Investmart, the HSBC let its MF change its scheme map and name midway thru the live scheme's 'life' ( i's an open ended scheme) SEBI of course is busy finding out if we can count funds collected under ULIP investment schemes under Funds management with the INR 8 trillion from MFs, IRDA is busy with the Ministry of Finance, who is busy with IPL, we got done a whole lot without a single dime in salary and someone else is busy with an earlier edition of Corp law amendments with no time to look at results calendar stretching to an extreme..why would Kotak bother to report results quickly, as if it was running its franchise in a growth market. You can't fule the Mumbaikar, he knows India is dead and dying everyday.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
ICICI BANK vs HDFC Bank - The biggies report on jam night
Both the private sector efforts that have taen the last decade of India's growth in almost their ownership having influenced governments and banks and slipped on roughshod retail portfolios without rhyme or reason, have reported they are still banks, pulling out their entire March 15 bag of tricks to report 33% jump for the Quarter for ICICI Bank and 33% jump for the full year for HDFC Bank.
India's overall credit targets have been met with AAA borrowers getting the feed in the last fortnight of the year, aking up for a trillion INr in gap in credit disbursal targets. As earlier, HDFC has touted its cohesive leadership and people skills for a better performance in retail lifestyle segments, continuing with INR 50 B in the last quarter in unsecured loans and mortgages. ICICI has dropped in interest income in the 4th Quarter while HDFC Bank reported a jump of 27% for the full year to INR 23.5B. ICICI Bank also showed results of its blocking of retail disbursals with NPAs staying at 2.12%
HDFC Bank's leadership in retail is hindered by its coyness in increasing its ATM presence while it leads in non metro markets with 32% of deposits and 47% of loans from its 2000 branches outside the metros, supported by only 3000 ATMs NIM is floating at 4.2% dspite the significantly higher CASA ratio ( >45%) ICICI Bank has reported the latest CASA of 34%
HDFC Banks cost of deposit s has been significantly higher at almost 6% compared to SBI which has reported 5.2% as abnormally high for 2010
Interesting tidbits streaming in..Unscrewing the IPL Jam | Local Deal notes..Advantage zyaada
Did IPL team offer Sunanda Pushkar and Kochi cash to back down. Will IT peg a valuation to the 70 crores sweat equity? Not only $80 million for WSG ( which may be due, as they were managing the bid winners vs MSM contract anyway) and KKr also flies in to lobby for the intermediate cash payments.. Lalit Modi's list of Private Jets and other fun assets from the last three years - Bettin gnexus or gratification for winning bids or both. 3 teams and 27 players already under ACU probe
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The 'new' breed of Politicians and over achievers
Santosh Desai has written a naturally 'poignant' piece in light of the events of the day in my now scantily read ToI copy somewhere in the Center pages. Thought he TOI by itself remains a GenXstory and not so interesting for thinkera and people of our age in life wo are politicians, business leaders, bollywood wannabes and even day to day office workers. However, Santosh pointed out a startingly true fact, that pressed on with an arrogance that comes from being educated and gaining a high moral ground that education gives you, Tharoor had become the kind of politician educationists back in the fond hope of raising the bar in indian Politics and getting rid of scum like Maya behnji and others.. Well,my two observation run tangentially and much in opposition to each other and therein probably a greater man may help me find the contradictions in the diction. While on one hand stripped of everything but his language even when in office, Tharoor slips into a kind of maniacal disposition while speaking and esp in his statement on NDTV and otherwise while seated in Cattle class. He slips to the side of excesses and extremes and forgets pragmatic action because he is dually blessed with youth and the gift of the gab and slips once too often making him easy fodder for the old guard. In this case, his boss in the Cabnet has himself gone through multiple such episodes at the hands of the then old guard in the Congress when even Sitaram Kesiri was counted fit enough to hold Political office. The second observation why I took time to post this article instead of concentrating on things banking and finance, is that another patron saint "Swami Ramdev" the exact embodiment of the discredited UP and Bihar belt like Maya behnji has anounced his decision to 'enter politic' on the same daya that Tharoor has quit. Wow, are we still looking at supporters of India does not need education lurking around looking to make a kill in The Trillion Dollar Government! And I haven't even got to discussing Dear Mr Modi..and his hoops thru ESPN in 2001 to India's cricket achievements and then the IPL
The 'new' breed of Politicians and over achievers
Santosh Desai has written a naturally 'poignant' piece in light of the events of the day in my now scantily read ToI copy somewhere in the Center pages. Thought he TOI by itself remains a GenXstory and not so interesting for thinkera and people of our age in life wo are politicians, business leaders, bollywood wannabes and even day to day office workers. However, Santosh pointed out a startingly true fact, that pressed on with an arrogance that comes from being educated and gaining a high moral ground that education gives you, Tharoor had become the kind of politician educationists back in the fond hope of raising the bar in indian Politics and getting rid of scum like Maya behnji and others.. Well,my two observation run tangentially and much in opposition to each other and therein probably a greater man may help me find the contradictions in the diction. While on one hand stripped of everything but his language even when in office, Tharoor slips into a kind of maniacal disposition while speaking and esp in his statement on NDTV and otherwise while seated in Cattle class. He slips to the side of excesses and extremes and forgets pragmatic action because he is dually blessed with youth and the gift of the gab and slips once too often making him easy fodder for the old guard. In this case, his boss in the Cabnet has himself gone through multiple such episodes at the hands of the then old guard in the Congress when even Sitaram Kesiri was counted fit enough to hold Political office. The second observation why I took time to post this article instead of concentrating on things banking and finance, is that another patron saint "Swami Ramdev" the exact embodiment of the discredited UP and Bihar belt like Maya behnji has anounced his decision to 'enter politic' on the same daya that Tharoor has quit. Wow, are we still looking at supporters of India does not need education lurking around looking to make a kill in The Trillion Dollar Government!
The 'new' breed of Politicians and overacheivers
Santosh Desai has written a naturally 'poignant' piece in light of the events of the day in my now scantily read ToI copy somewhere in the Center pages. Thought he TOI by itself remains a GenXstory and not so interesting for thinkera and people of our age in life wo are politicians, business leaders, bollywood wannabes and even day to day office workers.
However, Santosh pointed out a startingly true fact, that pressed on with an arrogance that comes from being educated and gaining a high moral ground that education gives you, Tharoor had become the kind of politician educationists back in the fond hope of raising the bar in indian Politics and getting rid of scum like Maya behnji and others..
Well,my two observation run tangentially and much in opposition to each other and therein probably a greater man may help me find the contradictions in the diction. While on one hand stripped of everything but his language even when in office, Tharoor slips into a kind of maniacal disposition while speaking and esp in his statement on NDTV and otherwise while seated in Cattle class. He slips to the side of excesses and extremes and forgets pragmatic action because he is dually blessed with youth and the gift of the gab and slips once too often making him easy fodder for the old guard. In this case, his boss in the Cabnet has himself gone through multiple such episodes at the hands of the then old guard in the Congress when even Sitaram Kesiri was counted fit enough to hold Political office.
The second observation why I took time to post this article instead of concentrating on things banking and finance, is that another patron saint "Swami Ramdev" the exact embodiment of the discredited UP and Bihar belt like Maya behnji has anounced his decision to 'enter politic' on the same daya that Tharoor has quit. Wow, are we still looking at supporters of India does not need education lurking around looking to make a kill in The Trillion Dollar Government!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The HUL is cool verses
As witnessed by the young boyish silky holi lllama of Unilever soaps in India, Gopal Vittal and of course Paul Polson and Nitin doing the rounds with the same mint (livemint.com) business paper this last week, HUL has been facing a saturating market in HPC ( Home Personal Care ), its fave brands despite the extent of branded retail being miniscule in Indian consumer's reach. Having lost upto 600 basis points in market share in different product categories they are supposedly making a comeback at the expense of P&G and its Tide and other mid market brands. They have done so by carrying the consumer rights story of HLL (HUL) to the extreme and insinuating on TV while claiming the same outside and in court that Tide is misleading consumers with lower quality products and misleading claims of quality.. They remain unrepentant but this age of HUL management is unlikely to be the global leaders as espoused by Keki Dadiseth, Vindy Banga and now Vittal's super senior Sanjay Khosla who is leading his cheesy fight for Kraft after having lurched off from Fonterra for the Mac Dip.
unilever has almost given up the fight during the recession and its comeback stuck in court while P&G would now be spending $500million on Feminine Hygiene and Pampers ads have already started doing the rounds.. See what happens? Though strangely, they have not extended there BOP market efforts in India to global memes of P&G like Bounty 's sponsorship of Sports and that by other brands leveraging NFL last year..Chicken?
Indian urban Infrastructure Lab - Bangalore
Despite the metro and highways forever under construction along rterial roads, Bangalore keeps growing fangs and retail hotspots.. Passing the Lifestyle store with the Escada beach babe poster #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt What exactly am i supposed to say to my daughter #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt And the Salwar suits and HDFC emi outdoor adverts #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt imagine keeping bluefi open on the road to recieve bus day ads #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt The destitutes at Destimoney are up for sale at no consideration #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt And the ones at Arthamoney are merged for re 1 #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt The festering mass plague hot spot from Richmond Circle to Vithal Mallya Road is preserved by the ASI? #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt I know, they are just recreating Bombay's Airport district in front of ITC royale #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt Probably enhances Madhu's cooking #bangalore about 3 hours ago via txt You know the namma metro near majestic has hit oil reserves while digging? the whole place smells of gas #bangalore about 2 hours ago via txt New Inox with Taco bell inside the Mantri SQUARE mall. a big kemp clone #bangalore about 2 hours ago via txt Much better inside. But Mantri Square can't beat the forum on location. #bangalore about 2 hours ago via txt Good lobby and 'causeways' Mantri SQUARE #bangalore about 2 hours ago via txt This has a zero less on the tab than Select Citywalk and Emporio but lesser interest. Bangalore North is poor town about 2 hours ago via txt BANKING Living a Crisis http://ow.ly/1uYu6 http://fb.me/vtnNhGWl about 1 hour ago via Facebook Tv Networks get all pervasive and then make a comeback after losing it in 2009 http://ow.ly/1uYt5 about 2 hours ago via HootSuite Coconut grave yard, Taj Biryani and Beijing bites Mantri SQUARE #bangalore about 2 hours ago via txt Bangalore has lost its cool factor. weather, pubs, traffic 19 minutes ago via txt My friends should feel jilted and discharged without free recourse to me. I still have work to do #bangalore 24 minutes ago via txt As usual they got so casual that it took 4 people to pack 3 rolls but the rolls are good 36 minutes ago via txt The old man at the corner still sells FT like proper smuggled goods. bet you'd feel like a criminal for buying #bangalore about 1 hour ago via txt Retail Lifestyle X Lifestyle X Lifestyle Economy X Bangalore X Urban Infrastructure X India X India Infrastructure
The sky dome is a sexy catch |Mantri SQUARE #bangalore about 2 hours ago via txt
New 'mall' on Mg road looks like a railway station inspired construction #bangalore Gk Vale 21 minutes ago via txt
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Zain Airtel Deal
Analysts have really covered the deal threadbare with the company management sharing a lot of data with the deal signing. Howeve, I find the data has not been used crrectly in that analysis in a bid to be cautious. Airtel is a great India brand, defnitely because of its advertising and branding but also because it is an operational leader and the true Navratna. It is a great purchase for Airtel, with Zain Africa showing profits of $175 m in the last 12 months and a per user value of $8 which is truly behind $13 from leader MTN but is a great place to start for someone who can build in operational efficiencies. New Capital Expenditure will have to be factored in to truly realise Airtel strategy of the mistakenly named "minutes factory"
Bharti's model is not strictly pricing a minutes factory as half baked reports suggest but the company would make significant investments in infrastructure and use marketing and branding to maintain a premium in brand cognition while maximising capacity utilization. Access to 45% of Africa's population which is also seeing a surge in development because of its rich OIL deposits would easily lead them to the target of sharing the lead market share with MTN and probably even reach the company's goal of getting 120 million subscribers in Africa a probable one. Airtel already has 120 million subscribers in India
Great Purchase. $175m and 42 million subscribers. ARPU at $8, MTN ARPU at $13 good target.
3G bids are soon to be opened in India after a rocky trail of denials and postponements. Then there is 4G, the sector is significantly infrastructure intensive and the deal is likely to be expensive in the initial run, but given a pedigree like Airtel, it can manage both markets unlike previous large deals and attempts by Tatas, Ambanis and others for loss making assets and no operational excellence history. Even the Birla Scion has been ble to make a better stab of it at Hindalco where he is able to produce the acquisitions end products , soda cans here in India cost effectively. Airtel's ticket is its ability to realise a complete infrastructure with a longer term window in each market, their experience in 23 circle in India over just 10 years bearing them out.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The other one after Financial Media is Gaming!
UTV expanded in the media and entertainment market when the demand was booming and supply seemingly had gne social in the rest of the world. They hve done fairly well for themselves, in no small measure due to the JV with Bloomberg. the Bloomberg UTV financial enterprise is definitely the best news source for the alive markets of the country with CNBC and ETNOW not living up to their brand and sticking to the shallow salty marshes when it comes to analysis speak. In no small measure, Screwalla went ahead and challenged the big guns on TV during the Budget Telecast sweepstakes. However, that one is maybe a little tougher than the UTV team supposes it to be. NDTV Profit is a non competitor right now but may soon get fangs if one misdirected investor finds them worth it. Such is the magic of fresh investment with intelligence like mine freely available to these sundries in the lean times.
Moving on, UTV has grander plans, having recruited 50-60 game developers in locations int he US and UK for its JV with Disney in social gaming. It's answer to Avatar and to games like Mafia Wars online is kicking off with an online social game called Mythium in the next 2-3 weeks. Our first child of digital media, Pentasoft has in the meantime recovered from some of its own excesses and is still around, but a lot of global media houses are notw cottoned on to this democratic land for spinning big business from social web's breakthrough 2009
The other one after Financial Media is Gaming!
UTV expanded in the media and entertainment market when the demand was booming and supply seemingly had gne social in the rest of the world. They hve done fairly well for themselves, in no small measure due to the JV with Bloomberg. the Bloomberg UTV financial enterprise is definitely the best news source for the alive markets of the country with CNBC and ETNOW not living up to their brand and sticking to the shallow salty marshes when it comes to analysis speak. In no small measure, Screwalla went ahead and challenged the big guns on TV during the Budget Telecast sweepstakes. However, that one is maybe a little tougher than the UTV team supposes it to be. NDTV Profit is a non competitor right now but may soon get fangs if one misdirected investor finds them worth it. Such is the magic of fresh investment with intelligence like mine freely available to these sundries in the lean times.
Moving on, UTV has grander plans, having recruited 50-60 game developers in locations int he US and UK for its JV with Disney in social gaming. It's answer to Avatar and to games like Mafia Wars online is kicking off with an online social game called Mythium in the next 2-3 weeks. Our first child of digital media, Pentasoft has in the meantime recovered from some of its own excesses and is still around, but a lot of global media houses are notw cottoned on to this democratic land for spinning big business from social web's breakthrough 2009
Another brokerage advert
While 15% of India's investing population is a pretty thin amount, Kotak securities tried to capitalise on its reach in the markets with a bland ad for its brokerage on financial TV..The 10-15s spot ( likely the 30s standard, swishes past you with a sickening impact in the stomach. That Asia's best Capitalised Market represents only 3% of its population and is targeted more at online connossieurs that are also not more than 15% of India's population..does not bode well for our market depth. With taxchanges in Mauritius, the proportion of retail investors in the market will hopefully change for the better
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Replicating Farmville in China
This one: Replicating Farmville in a Shopping Mall in Shenyang in the North East
China trouble?
Here's some snaps the China daily just produced...
It's a fggy scene in China's luxury and commercial scene today even as the new year rolls on 
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