Credit crisis is easing in India, but only for safest corporate borrowers

The cash squeeze in the nation’s shadow banking industry, which lends to everyone from street vendors to property tycoons, shows few signs of abating

India’s credit crisis appears to be winding down for the safest borrowers, but it’s hardly time to celebrate as weaker firms still struggle. Policy makers have been fighting to prevent debt markets from seizing up since the shock collapse of shadow bank IL&FS Group last year. They can take some cheer in this: spreads on top-rated corporate bonds have dropped back near where they were when the crisis began in September last year.

Much work remains to be done. Lower-rated companies are still struggling with a cash squeeze and rising borrowing costs. Economic growth slowed to 4.5 per cent last quarter, the weakest in more than six years. Corporate financial health has deteriorated to the worst in at least seven years, according to a Care Ratings index. A series of defaults are keeping investors on edge, said Anil Gupta, a vice-president at Mumbai-based credit rater ICRA Ltd.

The cash squeeze in the nation’s shadow banking industry, which lends to everyone from street vendors to property tycoons, shows few signs of abating. Investors have fled to safer assets after defaults by firms including Altico Capital India Ltd. and Reliance Capital Ltd. Concerns about governance have also taken a toll, following incidents at companies including Karvy Stock Broking Ltd. and Dewan Housing Finance Corp….Click Here

How some financiers are benefiting from India’s shadow banking crisis

Many shadow lenders have been effectively shut out of the nation’s credit market as the more than 15-month-old banking crisis raises investor wariness about the financiers’ ability to refinance debt

As the shakeout in India’s credit market shows few signs of abating, one group of financiers is benefiting from the turmoil: shadow banks that provide loans in exchange for gold. In a country deeply attached to the precious metal, whose people stockpile more gold than citizens of any other country, borrowers are increasingly pawning their family jewelry to get cash amid a fundraising crunch.

That’s helped double the share price in the past year of Manappuram Finance Ltd, one such firm, while the stock of Muthoot Finance Ltd, the country’s largest cash-for-gold lender, has jumped 47%. Those financiers’ bonds are also in demand at a time when investors are shunning debt from other shadow banks, which are struggling from lack of funds and credit downgrades.

More than half of the loans from these lenders get repaid in less than six months, providing firms with a steady stream of cash to pay off their own debt and thus avoiding a so-called asset-liability mismatch. The recent rise in gold prices is also a boon. Indian households have almost $1 trillion worth of gold, and the nation is the biggest buyer of the metal after China….

Read More: Banking Crisis

Jio effect: 5 things that show telecom sector will never be the same again

With Reliance Jio coming out with new deal for users, pain will aggravate and extend to June quarter

 

If the December quarter was bad for the telecom sector, the March quarter could be worse. The full impact of Reliance Jio's (RJio) service will be felt from the March quarter as people had still been trying out the service and the size had been growing to peak levels towards the end of FY16. On every parameter -- realisations, volumes, revenues, margins or debt -- companies are likely to report numbers that are at multi-year lows/peaks. 

Here are five things from the March quarter that stand out:

ARPU is in, all other metrics are out

The launch of free offers and attractive packages has made a number of operational metrics like data revenue per megabyte and average revenue per minute redundant. Harsh Jagnani of ICRA says that given the bundled offers by all telecom operators, the 'primary metric which will be tracked' going ahead will be average revenue per subscriber or ARPU. RJio's bundled offers, allowing users unlimited calls and data usage, is the prime reason for this sea change. 

Revenues take a dive as ARPUs hit 5-year lows

CRISIL Research estimates that March quarter revenues for the four listed players will fall by 10 per cent year-on-year as compared to the 5 per cent year-on-year fall in the December quarter. The reason for the sharp decline is no

t only fall in tariffs, both for data and voice, but also the dip in volumes given a large amount of data usage shifted to RJio. Industry ARPUs have been estimated to fall to five-year lows of around Rs 150. With RJio coming out with a new deal for its users, the pain will aggravate and extend to the June quarter.|  read full story...

IPL 2017 gets bigger with sponsors, key players missing in the 10th edition

Virat Kohli out for the first week; Ashwin, de Cock, Mars, Vijay, Rahul among missing names

 

Amid much fan-frenzy, and competition among sponsors and players, the Indian Premiere League turns 10 this season. And organisers are preparing for a big celebration for the landmark edition, which kicks off on Wednesday. Unlike past editions, the 10th season will host eight different opening ceremonies, one before the first home game of each franchise, IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla announced on Monday. 

After Pepsi terminated its contract with IPL, Vivo Electronics bagged the title sponsorship for two years in 2015. Business Standard had earlier reported that Vivo will pay Rs 100 crore a year, against the Rs 80 crore Pepsi was paying annually.

Broadcaster Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has signed up 11 sponsors, including Amazon, and it is targeting over Rs 1,200 crore in advertisement revenue from the 10th season.

E-commerce major Amazon, mobile handset maker Vivo and telecom giant Vodafone will be the presenting sponsors, while Ceat, wire-maker Polycab, Yamaha Motorcycles, Vimal Pan Masala, MakeMytrip, Parle Agro's Frooti, Voltas and YES Bank are associate sponsors.

However, the only regret for some fans of the cricket extravaganza this year is going to be the absence of some blockbuster names in the game. Thanks to international cricketing calendar getting busier with every passing year, the players are getting more prone to injuries. Even before the start of the touranment, injuries have already started bothering the franchises as well. Many star players could give this year's IPL a complete or partial miss. 

The biggest among missing names in IPL 2017 is Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) captain Virat Kohli, who is out due to his shoulder injury. Kohli, however, is likely to return on the field by the second week of April. 

K L Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mitchell Marsh, Murali Vijay will completely miss the tournament due to their respective injuries. While Umesh Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja are likely to regain fitness, they would be missing some of the initial matches. Lasith Malinga is on a national duty and might miss the first few matches, while J P Duminy pulled out of the tournamnet citing personal reasons.

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