The numbers suggest the earnings performance of the broad market has been worse than that of the narrow market. For a sample of nearly 1,000 companies, excluding banks and financial services, net profits for the March 2009 quarter are down a very sharp 20 per cent year-on-year. That's not surprising because operating profit margins have come off by nearly 200 basis points, indicating that India Inc's problems have more to do with costs because the top line has held up well.
Here's how Westside scored over Shopper's Stop.
Shikha Sharma's contentious appointment as CEO of Axis Bank doesn't detract from her sound reputation in the financial world.
With a good 69 per cent of its existing customers having trimmed their IT budgets by about 10 per cent, volumes too could be weaker. In a difficult environment, business from new clients is understandably harder to come by and taking far longer than it did earlier. Which is why the tech major has announced a fairly conservative dollar revenue outlook: revenues for 2009-10 will be lower by 3-7 per cent over 2008-09 levels.
The L&T stock, which fell by over 5 per cent in intra-day trades on Monday bounced back towards the end of the session though it was still in the red. The stock has been badly de-rated since the engineering major made it clear that it was a contender for Satyam, picking up a 12 per cent stake in the tech firm. Had L&T won control at the winning bid of Rs 58 per share, the stock may have lost further ground. As it stands, not too much damage has been done.
The Satyam buyout gives the tech firm a chance to diversify away from telecom, something it badly needed to do. It shouldn't be too difficult for Satyam to be able to turn in an operating profit of close to Rs 1,000 crore in 2009-10, so that would translate into an EV/ebitda of 8.4 times for the company.
Promoters in India aren't afraid to borrow as the chances of them losing their companies is very slim, says Shobhana Subramanian.
Habil F Khorakiwala's exit as managing director of pharma major Wockhardt may have been somewhat inglorious but it is one he didn't deserve.
The Rs 3,290 crore (Rs 32.9 billion) Sun plans to sell Topamax in four strengths ranging from 25mg to 200mg, the combined market for which is estimated to be $2.5 billion. There is, of course, no litigation with the patent holder OrthoMcneill Janssen. The US market, which brings in about 40 per cent of Sun's consolidated sales and has driven revenues in the past few year could lose momentum.
Judging by the actions of most companies, you wouldn't think they cared two hoots what shareholders thought or didn't think, says Shobhana Subramanian.
The Nano may ultimately be a winner but cannot turn around the company in the near term. For the present, Tata Motors continues to stare at a weak demand for both commercial vehicles as also cars. While CV volumes were lower by 51 per cent y-o-y in January 2009, compared with a fall of 46 per cent y-o-y in the December 2008 quarter, to revert to the mean could take a while given that the downturn in the economy persists.
L&T has spent around Rs 600 crore for the Satyam stake, leading to a de-rating of its stock. But the bigger worry seems to be a loss of momentum in order inflows; L&T had indicated that orders would increase by about 30 per cent in the current year; that target may be missed because of a delay on the part of ONGC in awarding contracts. Besides, a small part of the current order book, which is a robust Rs 69,000 crore, could see delays of between 8-10 months.
If what Citi CEO Vikram Pandit is suggesting is true, namely that the bank is seeing a turnaround in its fortunes, there cannot be better news for the US' battered financial markets. After all, Citigroup is still a huge institution and if it can be put back on the rails, then there's hope for many others, says Shobhana Subramanian.
There could be some significant changes in motorcycles over the next few years says Shobhana Subramanian.
The company has posted good volumes despite keen competition. In fact volumes were higher than in the six months to September 2008 and that helped the company maintain market.
Over the last six years close to Rs 96,000 crore (Rs 960 billion) has been mopped up through IPOs by nearly 300 companies while another 56 companies have picked up about Rs 47,000 crore (Rs 470 billion) from the equity market through follow-on issues.
Keen competition will make the going tough even for market leaders in the segment.
Idea cellular trebled its share in the Mumbai market, albeit on a low base. RCom, for its part added five million (including GSM) subscribers during the month, numbers that have both surprised and confounded the market.
That interest rates at the long end could rise in the second half of the year is disconcerting.
If the real estate majors don't get real, they could soon be in line for another bailout next year, or even earlier.
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