Month: September 2019

Central Vista makeover: Six architectural firms submit bids for ambitious project

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Six architectural firms have submitted their bids for the redevelopment plan of Central Vista in the heart of the national capital, sources said on Monday.
The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry had fixed September 30 as the last date for submission of designs for the ambitious plan of the Narendra Modi government. According to official sources in the ministry, evaluation of the bids will take 10-15 days.

“Only six architectural firms have submitted their bids for the project,” a source said, adding once the evaluation is completed, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) will invite financial bids.

Sources said a committee of experts will be constituted to evaluate the designs.

On September 2, the ministry had invited a request for proposal (RFP) from national and international architectural firms for development or redevelopment of the Parliament building, Common Central Secretariat and Central Vista”

According to the plan, the government would redevelop the 3 km-stretch of the Central Vista spanning from the Rashtrapati Bhavan to the India Gate. The ministry said that the entire project will be completed by 2024.

Meanwhile, the Centre has identified around four locations in central Delhi for the possible shift of various government offices to temporary structures to be erected by the CPWD.

In the ministry, a process is underway to ascertain how many government offices are functioning in Lutyens’ Delhi. The CPWD has assured the HUA Ministry that it can erect temporary structures of two-three floors with the available latest technology in just three months to accommodate hundreds of government offices.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Read full text of suspended PMC Bank MD Joy Thomas’ letter to RBI

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The now-suspended managing director of the crisis-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC), Joy Thomas, has admitted to RBI that the bank’s actual exposure to the bankrupt HDIL is over Rs 6,500 crore.

Here is the full text of his letter:

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Retail inventories remain high despite automakers taking production cuts

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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As demand for automobiles in India refuses to pick up and auto dealers struggle with financing unsold inventory, Indian automakers have been making drastic cuts in production to correct stock levels at retail dealerships. However, when CNBC-TV18 spoke with dealers across two major urban markets in West and North India, we found that inventories at the dealership level still remains high.

Breaking down the inventory picture across passenger vehicle and two-wheeler manufacturers over the last three months, we take a look at why inventories still haven’t corrected in keeping with the reduction in wholesale dealer billings:

Tata Motors dealerships continue to report inventories up to 60 days in September. This, despite the company adopting an entirely pull-based model for dealer billings: a unique and industry-first step in the current slowdown cycle, where the OEM has been doing wholesale sales reflecting solely on retail sales. Inventories over the July-August period have remained in the 45-60 day range due to retail sales dropping further. Tata Motors dealers we spoke to said that the company has promised to bring down inventory to 21 days by the end of the year.

For Mahindra and Mahindra, inventories have corrected a bit to 45-50 days on average across dealerships from over 60 days until a couple of months ago. M&M dealers tell CNBC-TV18 that retail sales have come down further, while billings from the OEM have only reduced by 8-10 percent, falling short of a big support move like some OEMs like Maruti Suzuki have taken. (MSIL reduced dealer billings by a third in August). Moreover, dealers we spoke with told us that M&M’s sales have been hit further in the last 4-5 months because of the new MG Hector and Kia Seltos, both models competing directly in the segment that M&M sells.

Maruti Suzuki, the country’s largest automaker, which accounts for half of all passenger vehicle sales in the domestic market, inventories with dealerships in the northern and western regions have come down to an average of 35 days, coming down by 5 days each in the last two months. The sharp correction coming on the back of the production cuts the company has been taking, however in the southern states the situation is worse, with one dealer reporting inventories of 2 months or 60 days for the last three months.

For Hyundai and Honda cars the inventory situation remains in the 35-40 days category. Ex-of-the Venue, Hyundai too has seen retail sales dropping, while many dealerships have been refusing to pick up orders from Honda Cars in the face of stocks piling up.

In the two-wheelers space, where inventory pile-up has been that much more alarming, Hero MotoCorp stares at perhaps the highest inventories in the category, with dealers holding 50-60 days of stock so far in September, though still less than the 65-70 day average in the month of July.

For Bajaj Auto, inventories have been easing, as the company cut wholesales by 21 percent in August and 15 percent in July.

For Honda Motorcycles and Scooters, inventories remain in the range of 45-50 days, as a dip in retail demand offsets production cuts by the OEM, which is the largest manufacturer of scooters in the country.

Lastly, for Royal Enfield, wholesale sales were down 23.7 percent in August, with dealers reporting stock levels of 30-35 days on average across markets, whereas earlier stocks were usually maintained at 21 days.

Both auto OEMs and dealers are now hoping that consumers return to showrooms in the upcoming festive season and that sales pick-up before they enter full-fledged inventory correction mode.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

SpiceJet signs lease for four ex-Jet Airways MAX, 10-12 more ready for delivery

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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SpiceJet has signed the lease for four Boeing 737 MAX which were earlier operated by Jet Airways India Ltd, Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh told shareholders at the airline’s annual general meeting today.

In addition to these four MAX aircraft, 10-12 MAX planes are also ready to be delivered to SpiceJet in the US, Singh added.

While DGCA has said in the recent past that it will be conservative in a resumption of MAX service in India, customer SpiceJet has been optimistic of the aircraft’s return soon.

“They have fixed the issues in MCAS (flight control system of the aircraft called Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System). They have told us that the plane will fly again by November. The certification process should be completed by October,” a senior executive at SpiceJet had recently said.

SpiceJet has a total order-book of 205 planes, out of which 155 are firm orders and 50 are options.

The 12 MAX aircraft of SpiceJet, which have already been inducted, are grounded since March after a global grounding of this aircraft type post two fatal accidents.

Boeing’s fastest-selling model, the MAX aircraft, was grounded worldwide in March following safety concerns after a second fatal crash involving this aircraft. While the first tragic crash was a Lion Air flight in late October 2018, the second one was that of Ethiopian Airlines in March this year.

In July, the US aviation regulator FAA had found a new potential risk in Boeing’s MAX family of aircraft and had asked the company to mitigate it.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

FIR filed in PMC Bank case as MD takes full responsibility

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The now-suspended managing director of the crisis-hit Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC), Joy Thomas, has admitted to RBI that the bank’s actual exposure to the bankrupt HDIL is over Rs 6,500 crore. This is four times the regulatory cap or a whopping 73 percent of its entire assets of Rs 8,880 crore.

The admission came in after a board member leaked the actual balance sheet details to the Reserve Bank, a source in the know of the details said.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police has filed an FIR in the case. The FIR alleges possible fraud and wrongful loss of Rs 4,355 crore and also charges Housing Development and Infrastructure of cheating.

The slum redevelopment focused firm, HDIL, is in the bankruptcy court now after being hit by a severe cash crunch following the failure of some of its key projects in the city.

ALSO READ: Why PMC Bank fraud is bigger than Nirav Modi’s PNB scam

Sources say that non-disclosure of the actual HDIL status (NPA since the past two-three years) and the quantum of the exposure to the group was leaked by one of the PMC board members himself to the Reserve Bank, forcing Joy Thomas to confess the misreporting.

Thomas wrote a four-and-a-half page detailed letter to the regulator giving details of how he, along with six key people who include a few board members, including chairman Waryam Singh and one or two senior bank officials, were sanctioning loans to the HDIL Group. Thomas has also confessed that most of the board members were in the dark about these loans.

ALSO READ: Full text of Ex-MD PMC Bank, Joy Thomas’ letter to RBI

Waryam Singh was on the board of HDIL for nine years between 2006 and 2015 and had held 1.91 percent stake in the company during this period. He ceased to be a non-executive director of the company in March 2015. Before he exited the HDIL board, Singh had sold his entire stake in the company.

The loans were sanctioned to the realty developer since 2008, according to sources. As per regulations, single entity exposure limit for banks is 15 percent of their capital fund. For group companies, the exposure limit is 20 percent. Thus, PMC’s exposure to HDIL is almost four-times of what RBI mandates.

Thomas, in a press conference last week, had said the bank’s exposure to HDIL and its related entities was to the tune of Rs 2,500 crore and that there was a delay in repayments by the group since the last two-three years.

In the confession letter, Thomas also put the actual NPA number at 60-70 percent as against a reported net NPA of 2.19 percent as of March 31, 2019.

Though the RBI is still inspecting the bank’s balance sheet, if the NPA numbers turn out to be as per Thomas’ confession, it will be the highest in the banking industry so far.

On September 19, Thomas met RBI Executive Director Rabi Mishra and sought time to resolve the issue, citing HDIL was in advanced stages of selling some of its real estate assets.

The money from the asset sale could have helped HDIL repay at least the interest part and make its account with PMC standard, Thomas had informed the RBI.

The regulator sent the inspection team to the bank’s headquarters in suburban Mumbai on the evening of September 19 itself.

During the inspection, RBI found major financial irregularities, under-reporting of exposure and failure of internal controls and systems.

On September 23 evening, the RBI had put a slew of restrictions on the bank for six months. The restrictions included curbs on fresh lending, accepting fresh deposits and investments, among others.

The withdrawal limit for account holders was also kept at Rs 1,000 for six months, which was later raised to Rs 10,000.

The regulator also dismissed the board and suspended Thomas. It appointed J B Bhoria as the administrator at the bank.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Secretaries panel clears strategic stake sale in five PSUs

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A group of secretaries on Monday cleared disinvestment in five companies, according to sources. They are believed to have approved entire stake sale in BPCL and Shipping Corporation, while NEEPCO and THDC will be acquired by other public sector units (PSUs). CNBC-TV18 had reported the news on September 25.

North Block sources indicate that NTPC will acquire THDC while NHPC will acquire NEEPCO.

It has also been proposed to divest 30 percent government equity in CONCOR with management control on NITI Aayog’s suggestion.

The next step for the Government is to get cabinet approvals for each of the strategic stake sales.

ALSO READ: Government looks to sell its entire stake in 5 CPSEs, including BPCL

It’s noteworthy that the Government holds 53.29 percent equity in BPCL, 54.79 percent in Container Corporation, 63.75 percent in Shipping Corporation. The Centre’s shareholding is 75 percent in THDC while 25 percent is with the Uttarakhand government. NEEPCO is 100 percent government-owned.

Post the cabinet nod, the government will start the valuation exercise for each of the companies, appoint consultants and merchant bankers and also invite bids for the strategic stake sales of BPCL, Container Corporation, Shipping Corporation, while NTPC and NHPC will be involved in the process of merging THDC and NEEPCO respectively with their own businesses, along with of course, the critical task of valuation of the unlisted companies.

The final nod for each of the stake sales will come from the Finance Minister Sitharaman headed Alternate Mechanism or the group of Ministers on disinvestment which will approve the bid price and the actual transaction.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

China warns US investment curbs would hurt global growth

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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China warned the U.S. against trying to limit investment ties between the two countries, even as the Trump administration contradicted a report that Washington might be considering removing Chinese companies from American stock exchanges.

The foreign ministry appealed to Washington to “meet us halfway” and resolve disputes amid a tariff war that threatens to depress global economic growth.

China’s warning comes two days after a U.S. official tweeted a Treasury Department statement saying the administration “is not contemplating blocking Chinese companies from listing shares on the U.S. stock exchanges at this time.”

Stock markets slid after Bloomberg News reported last week that U.S. officials were considering restricting investment ties with China. It said other options including banning investments in Chinese companies by government pension funds.

“To exert extreme pressure and even attempt to force the decoupling of China-U.S. relations will definitely damage the interests of U.S. and Chinese enterprises and people, cause financial market turmoil and endanger international trade and the world economic growth,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang.

Negotiators are due to meet next week in Washington for a 13th round of talks aimed at resolving the tariff war over complaints about Beijing’s trade surplus and technology ambitions.

The two sides have announced conciliatory measures including lifting or postponing punitive tariffs. But there has been no sign of progress toward settling their core disputes. Economists say a temporary agreement is possible but a permanent deal is unlikely this year.

“We hope that the United States will work with China to deepen economic, trade and financial cooperation between the two countries,” Geng said. “We hope the United States will meet us halfway to work out a resolution in a constructive manner.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow