Tata Motors to pay monthly allowance to kin of employees who died of COVID-19 until retirement age

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

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Tata Motors will pay 50 percent of the basic salary every month to the family of employees who succumbed to COVID-19 till the age of retirement. The payment will be in addition to a one-time payout the family gets as immediate relief.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, PB Balaji, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Motors, said, “Regardless of the employee passing away due to COVID-19 or not the family gets a one-time payment of 20 months’ basic salary and a monthly allowance of 50 percent of basic till the superannuation date of the employee. One would not expect anything less than that from a Tata company.”

Tata Motors has so far lost 47 employees to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic last year. The company is one of the biggest employers in the automotive space in India running multiple plants that make cars, SUVs, vans, mini trucks, medium and heavy-duty trucks and buses.

“Currently, more than 90 percent of our employees above 45 years are vaccinated. We are also offering access to employees to medical care. We also have a comprehensive insurance scheme for our employees and their dependents,” Balaji added on the sidelines of announcing the March quarter financial results.

The Mumbai-based automaker is one of the few companies to have rolled out an employee-centric COVID-19 financial benefit scheme to the families of the deceased.

Earlier in May Bajaj Auto said it would continue to pay salary for two years to the family of the employee who died due to COVID-19 as well as fund the education of the children of the deceased.

The two-wheeler maker said in a Linkedin post: “Payment of monthly salary of up to Rs 2 lakh per month for 24 months, education assistance for a maximum of two children of Rs 1 lakh per child per annum up to 12th standard and Rs 5 lakh per annum per child for graduation will be offered under the assistance policy.”

Chennai-based TVS Motor Company said it will pay up to three times the gross annual salary to the family of the employee who dies due to COVID-19 as well as fund the education of his/her children up to under-graduation.

The ex-gratia is in addition to the standard TVS Motor Company Family Welfare Fund and other statutory benefits applicable to deceased employees and their families.

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

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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

Should you book profits in mid and smallcap funds now?

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

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The midcap mutual fund category has offered an average return of 70 percent over one year. Similarly, the NIFTY smallcap 100, which is the benchmark for smallcap funds, has delivered 114 percent return over one year, according to Archit Gupta, founder, and CEO of ClearTax.

It’s important to note here that midcap and smallcap space usually have short boom and bust cycles. It helps investors, as Gupta said if they time the market cycle correctly to maximize returns from these funds.

Here’s a list of the top 3 midcap and smallcap funds that have historically performed the best over the past 5 and 3 years (as compiled by Anup Bansal, CIO of Scripbox):

While mentioning this, Bansal said past performance should, however, not be a direct indicator for future performance. Therefore, investors should choose mutual funds based on a number of parameters.

Also read: Here’s why you should invest in FMPs now

“They should decide basis criteria such as active return over the fund’s style, the performance of the fund and the risk it takes to deliver that performance on market down days, consistency of historical performance to its benchmark and qualitative parameters of the fund house and the fund manager,” he further said.

Adding to this, Gupta of ClearTax said while checking the performance of midcap funds and smallcap funds across bull and bear markets, it gives an idea of the downside protection offered by these funds during past bear markets, which is equally vital as returns in a bull market.

Also read: Investing in global stocks? Know charges and tax implications

“Midcap funds and smallcap funds are more impacted by macroeconomic factors as compared to large-cap funds. Moreover, one gets the best performance from these funds only if they can pick smallcap funds and midcap funds when the bear market is bottoming out,” he mentioned.

So, he said it would help if investors pay close attention to the management of this midcap and smallcap companies and the company financials and opt for midcap funds and smallcap funds with a lower expense ratio to increase the take home-return.

On talking about profit booking from a category, Bansal said it totally depends on the overexposure of the category in the overall portfolio.

According to him, investors should not form decisions just by looking at midcap or smallcap funds in the portfolio. The overall allocation to mid and smallcaps depends upon concentration in the multicap, flexicap, large, mid and smallcap portfolios.

One’s overall exposure, Bansal suggested, can be 15-30 percent in midcap and 5-20 percent in smallcap. However, it is important to note here that every investor’s risk profile is different.

“Unless the current allocation crosses more than 5 percent above the designated allocation due to the recent market rally, there is no need to rebalance. Investors should also ensure that allocation is in highly ranked funds and switching to better-ranked funds is always preferable. They can trust fund managers to handle the matter of investing in deserving stocks, even if the market looks expensive,” he stated.

Finally, overall asset allocation should be reviewed on a quarterly basis. It is best for individuals to work with a wealth manager or financial adviser who can guide on the prospects of various funds in different categories.

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on CNBCTV18.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. CNBCTV18.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

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

$STOPELON is a new coin born as reaction to Elon Musk’s constant influence on crypto values

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

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We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. There are very few things that are certain in life. Day after night. And Elon Musk tweeting about cryptocurrency. Usually, with pretty damaging effects for crypto investors, something we have seen over the past few weeks with the tumbling values of Dogecoin and Bitcoin.

The former being the result of an SNL appearance which didn’t really result in the Dogefather helping Doge value spike as expected. Now, the cryptocurrency wants to fight back, and a new coin has been minted as a result—STOPELON.

The intention is to make crypto investors, particularly those who are starting out, aware of the crypto market fluctuations that are caused by Elon Musk’s tweets, which the community calls “irresponsibly manipulating”. Final target—take full control of Tesla stock, after the four-phase $STOPELON launch plan.

“Elon Musk is infamous for irresponsibly manipulating the cryptocurrency market with his Twitter account. Just recently, he did it again, causing a massive crash across all frontiers when he tweeted that Tesla will cease to accept Bitcoin as payment. Anyone with even a shred of critical thinking sees through his lies. He has been trying to pump crypto for ages, tweeting about it to no end, and even going to Saturday Night Live as a final resort to get Dogecoin up! It’s ridiculous!” says the Stop Elon team, on their website.

They mince no words in saying that Musk’s tweets toy with investor portfolios like candy and calls him a “narcissistic billionaire”.

The $STOPELON phased rollout now sees the launch of the website and listing the crypto on BSCSCAN, which tracks cryptocurrency transfers and holders. The next steps in this phase include the ongoing code audit by techrate.org as well as listing on Coinhunt, CoinGecko, Delta, Coinstats, and BlackFolio, and also target 5000 BSC addresses.

The second phase steps include staking liquidity, large-scale token drop across exchanges, NFT shop STOPELON, and small cap exchange listings.

The third phase would see mind-cap exchange listings which see STOPELON targeting KuCoin while the fourth phase looks to get the crypto coin large cap listings on Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken.

The final target which the community wishes to achieve is to take full control of the Tesla stock and “fly to f*****g Pluto”, as they say. At the time of writing this, StopElon is trading at $0.0000188133 and the market cap is pegged at $9,774,130 with the total supply pegged at 1,000,000,000,000. You can buy $STOPELON right now using the Trust Wallet, which is available for Apple iPhone and the Android phones.

For step 2, the community says, “Transfer BNB to your wallet. This can be done from Binance via the BNB network, or you can also top up your Trust Wallet by going into your Smart Chain wallet and press buy in the right corner.”

The next step would involve you enter PancakeSwap via DApps and Exchange BNB for $STOPELON using the contract address: 0xd83cec69ed9d8044597a793445c86a5e763b0e3d.

Cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and others have been under the spotlight for the energy that is required to mine these digital coins and the impact on the environment.

A few days ago, in the midst of all the cryptocurrency tweets that Musk had been posting, he took time out to write that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment for buying their electric cars, because of the increased power consumption that defines mining and transactions with Bitcoin and other crypto coins, and the environmental impact because of that.

It was in March that Tesla had said they’d accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment for buying their electric cars. Later, Financial services and investment management firm Galaxy Digital released some Bitcoin energy consumption numbers and these indicate that the traditional banking systems, as well as Gold mining, consume as much as twice the energy that Bitcoin requires.

The numbers by Galaxy Digital peg the annual electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network at 113.89 terawatts per hour per year (TWh/year). In comparison, the banking systems consume 263.72 TWh/yr of power while gold mining consumes around 240.61 TWh/yr.

They also point out that of the 26,730.07 TWh/yr electricity that is produced, there are transmission losses as high as 2,205.23 TWh/yr—and that’s according to the data confirmed by International Energy Agency (IEA). This loss is 19.36 times of what Bitcoin’s energy consumption is, over the year.

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

RBI governor Shaktikanta Das asks PSBs to quickly implement measures announced by RBI

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

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RBI governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday asked state-owned banks to quickly implement measures announced by the central bank recently in the “right earnest”, and to continue focussing on steps to enhance the resilience of their balance sheets.

Das during a meeting with the MDs and CEOs of public sector banks acknowledged the important role being played by PSBs in extending various banking facilities including credit facilities to individuals and businesses while tackling the challenges brought on by the pandemic.

“He impressed upon the banks to quickly implement the measures announced by RBI recently in the right earnest. He also urged the banks to continue focussing on steps to enhance the resilience of their balance sheets,” the RBI said in a statement post the meeting held over video conference.

Earlier this month, the governor had announced a slew of measures, including a term liquidity facility of Rs 50,000 crore to ease access to emergency health services, to further improve lending to the MSME sector, restructuring of loans, and rationalisation of compliance to KYC, in wake of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other matters that came up for discussion during the meeting, included the current state of the financial sector; credit flows to different sectors including to small borrowers, MSMEs; and progress in the implementation of Covid Resolution Framework.

Monetary policy transmission and implementation of Covid-related policy measures taken by RBI too were discussed. In his opening remarks, the governor acknowledged the important role being played by PSBs in extending various banking facilities including credit facilities to individuals and businesses while tackling the challenges brought on by the pandemic. The meeting was also attended by Deputy Governors M K Jain, M. Rajeswar Rao, Michael D Patra and T Rabi Sankar.

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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

PhonePe set to acquire Indus OS for $60 million

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

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Digital payments company PhonePe is in talks to acquire Indus OS, a domestic smartphone operating system, which runs its own app marketplace, sources aware of the talks told CNBC TV 18.

The PhonePe – Indus OS deal is likely to be valued at $60 million, as per the sources. Entrackr was the first to report on the development on Wednesday.  PhonePe and Indus CEO Rakesh Deshmukh did not respond to queries.

PhonePe’s interest in Indus OS comes from the distribution play since Indus OS has over 100 million users and over 4 lakh apps on its own app marketplace called App Bazaar. Indus OS has partnered with 12 mobile brands in India and powers Samsung’s default app store – Galaxy Store.

Walmart-owned PhonePe is among the leaders in the digital payments space in the country and has ~290 million registered users currently. The company has been processing around a billion transactions monthly, with Walmart on Tuesday stating in its earnings call that the annualised total payment value run rate at PhonePe grew 150 percent YoY during the March quarter.

PhoenPe CEO Sameer Nigam has also been at the forefront to criticise Google’s PlayStore billing policy that led to the demand among the Indian startup community to build a domestic app store in the country.

Indus OS’ App Bazaar has over 4 lakh apps available in 12 Indian languages, and the platform has seen over a billion app installs since 2019. PhonePe itself runs its own ‘super app’ platform Switch to offer users access to popular consumer internet apps on its platform.

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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

Govt asks WhatsApp to withdraw revised privacy policy

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

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The government on Wednesday asked WhatsApp to withdraw its new privacy policy within seven days by May 25. 

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, in a letter to Facebook-owned WhatsApp, warned that there are “various options” available to it under Indian law to take action against the US tech giant. 

MeitY in its letter mentioned that the postponement of WhatsApp’s revised policy, which earlier had a deadline of May 15, does not absolve the company from respecting legal and compliance issues surrounding privacy, data security, and user’s choice.

The revised policy allows WhatsApp to share data with  Facebook, the instant messaging app’s parent company.

According to MeitY, the revised policy and the manner in which it was introduced, completely undermines the privacy, data security, and preference for users across the country. Many Indians rely on WhatsApp for communicating on a daily basis.

“The ministry is cognizant of this problem. Today, Germany has banned this privacy policy of WhatsApp. The ministry is proactively looking at what we can do about it,” MeitY Special Secretary and Financial Advisor Jyoti Arora recently said at an Assocham event, reported PTI.

The ministry termed the policy discriminatory for Indian users when compared to users of the messaging app in Europe. It is irresponsible of WhatsApp to leverage its unique position in the Indian messaging ecosystem to impose unfair terms and conditions, it added.

As Whatsapp’s revised privacy policy stands in violation of Indian laws, the government is considering various options available to it under the prevailing law. If Mark Zuckerberg’s instant messaging app fails to submit a satisfactory response, the Centre will go ahead with legal proceedings. The matter is sub-judice in Delhi High Court.

WhatsApp has been facing flak ever since it introduced its new privacy policy and terms of use. The Competition Commission of India has directed a probe against the firm while numerous writ petitions have also been lodged against it. The company recently lost a case in Germany where the country had banned WhatsApp from sharing its info with Facebook in accordance with the same policy that is being opposed in India.

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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

Royal Enfield to recall 2.36 lakh Classic, Bullet and Meteor models to fix ignition coil defect

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

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Royal Enfield will recall its select motorcycle models produced between December 2020 and April 2021, following the discovery of a defect in the ignition coil, the company said on Wednesday.

According to a company statement, the defect in the ignition coil can cause misfiring and in rare cases, an electric short circuit, besides reducing the vehicle’s performance.

In view of this, the company will recall 2,36,966 motorcycles of Classic, Bullet and Meteor models sold in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia & New Zealand and Malaysia.

The statement said that the defect was discovered during routine internal testing. “The issue has been clearly identified and isolated to specific batches of material sourced from our external supplier between December 2020 and April 2021,” it said, adding the issue is rare and does not impact all motorcycles manufactured during the above-mentioned period.

“But, in keeping with safety regulations, Royal Enfield has decided to undertake a proactive, company-initiated recall of select motorcycles models produced in the above-mentioned time period as a precautionary measure,” the statement read.

The company will recall Meteor motorcycles manufactured and sold between December 2020 and April 2021, while the Classic and Bullet models produced and sold between January and April 2021. These motorcycles will undergo inspection and replacement of the said defective part, if required.

Royal Enfield, however, estimates that less than 10 percent of these motorcycles will require replacement of the part.

For the task, Royal Enfield service teams and local dealerships will reach out to the respective consumers.

“We are committed to swiftly implement the recall action, and customers will be proactively contacted through respective local dealerships”, said the company.

The company has also requested the concerned consumers to proactively reach out to their local Royal Enfield Workshops or call it on 1800 210 007.

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

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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

TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan draws Rs 20.36 cr pay package in FY21

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

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Tata Consultancy Services CEO and MD Rajesh Gopinathan took home a pay package of about Rs 20.36 crore in 2020-21, according to the company’s annual report. In 2019-20, Gopinathan had received a total remuneration of Rs 13.3 crore.

According to TCS’ annual report for 2020-21, Gopinathan received Rs 1.27 crore in salary, Rs 2.09 crore in benefits, perquisites and allowances, and Rs 17 crore in commission. TCS Chief Operating Officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam drew a pay package of about Rs 16.1 crore in the last financial year. This includes Rs 1.21 crore in salary, Rs 1.88 crore in benefits, perquisites and allowances, and Rs 13 crore in commission.

The increase in the managerial remuneration for the year was 55.22 per cent, the report said. “Increase in the managerial remuneration for FY2021 is not comparable with FY2020 owing to decrease in remuneration of 15 per cent in FY2020 in view of the economic conditions impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic wherein the Directors had decided to moderate the executive remuneration for FY2020 to express solidarity and conserve resources,” it added. The average annual increase in salaries was 5.2 per cent in India. However, during the course of the year, the total increase is approximately 6.4 per cent, after accounting for promotions and other event-based compensation revisions. Employees outside India received a wage increase varying from 2 to 6 per cent, the report said.

The increase in remuneration is in line with the market trends in the respective countries, it added. The report said the percentage increase in the median remuneration of employees in FY2021 was 0.03 per cent. TCS’ permanent employee base was at 4,48,649 at the end of 2020-21 fiscal year.

The 26th Annual General Meeting of the Mumbai-based company will be held virtually on June 10, 2021. TCS Chairman N Chandrasekaran said the company sees immense opportunities for growth, riding the new technology cycle that has kicked off, powered by the belief that its differentiated capabilities and collaborative, solution-centric approach makes it the preferred transformation partner of its customers. “It is building on that belief, and investing in sharpening the capabilities needed to expand its footprint in this large opportunity,” he said in his letter to the shareholders. Despite a sharp fall in revenues in the first quarter, TCS made a swift recovery during the rest of the year and clocked full year revenues of Rs 164,177 crore in FY2021.

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

Explained: What landed China’s Huarong Asset Management in trouble

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

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China’s Huarong Asset Management Company, created 20 years ago to dispose of the bad assets of China’s big state-owned banks, is facing unforeseen difficulties. The April 2018 execution of Lai Xiaomin, who was sentenced to death for corruption and bigamy, was a blow for the troubled state-owned asset management company. Lai oversaw the company from 2012 till January 2018.

Initially the markets took the news of his execution in its stride. However, the failure of the company to release its 2020 results by the March 31 deadline shook the markets. A recent report by Caixin, a Beijing-based media house known for investigative reporting, mentioned that the troubled firm will be restructured. This sparked a storm of debate resulting in a dip in the company’s bond trading at 57 cents to a dollar from a high of 102 cents a dollar.

Huge Outstandings

According to Bloomberg, as of June, the asset manager sat on 1.6 trillion yuan of debt and one-third of its 1.7 trillion yuan of assets is long overdue. The Chinese government, the majority stakeholder in the company, has been trying to sell the company’s non-core assets for three years and has been rather unsuccessful.

Repayment Commences

Despite its troubles, Huarong has transferred funds to repay a $300-million note maturing on May 20, the first dollar bond to come due. The New York Times wrote that China is planning an overhaul that would inflict “significant losses” to both domestic and foreign China Huarong bondholders.

Huarong has also firmed up funding agreements with state-owned banks to ensure it can repay debt through at least the end of August. With this breather, China Huarong aims to complete its 2020 financial statements, a Bloomberg report stated.

Moody’s and Fitch Downgrade Bonds

Despite repayments and assured statements, the bond market investors are a worried lot. The way Beijing is handling this issue has made Moody’s Investor Services downgrade Huarong by one notch to BAA1 and Fitch by three notches to BBB after dropping the perpetual bonds of the company to junk territory.

Govt Steps in

Last month, The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) had stepped in and asked lenders to extend China Huarong’s upcoming loans by at least six months. The central bank is expected to pump in more than 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) to help clean up the firm’s mess.

Govt is the Majority Shareholder

China’s finance minister is the majority shareholder in Huarong with 57 percent stake in the troubled asset management company. Investors were confident that Beijing would support Huarong, resulting in the company going public in 2015.

Before it went public, Lai sold a $2.4-billion stake to a group of investors, including Warburg Pincus, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, and Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund. Others who joined the bandwagon were BlackRock Inc and Vanguard Group. Currently, the stock has collapsed by 67 percent of its listing price.

Quick Clean up Needed

Despite the company’s offshore financing unit returning to profitability and the CBIRC claiming there is enough liquidity, banks have been told not to withhold loans to Huarong. This means the company is still in a mess. It needs to be cleaned quickly and to make matters worse, the government is not stepping in to save the bad bank from going bust.

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