DLF sells nearly 90 independent floors in Gurugram for over ₹300 crore

NEW DELHI, Nov 29: Realty major DLF Ltd has sold nearly 90 independent floors worth over ₹300 crore in Gurugram and plans to launch more such projects as demand for premium residential properties has revived in last few months.

The company plans to launch independent floors in DLF Phase I-IV at Gurugram, New Gurugram and Panchkula among others.

"Recently we launched 88 residences in form of premium independent floors (at a price point of ₹3.75 - 4.25 crores each), spread across 22 plots, in the DLF City Phase 3...in Gurugram. These were sold out in a record time," said Aakash Ohri, Sr Executive Director Sales & Director, DLF.

The company plans to launch similar products in Panchkula, Tri-city, New Gurgaon and wherever there is an opportunity in DLF phase 1 to 4, he told PTI.

"With an improved attractiveness for real estate as a preferred asset class, against other traditional alternatives, home buyers are looking at safeguarding their accumulated savings by investing in a more long-term asset," Ohri said.

He said plotted developments continue to remain an attractive investment option due to lower investment cost, vis- vis ready-to-move in properties.

Ohri said the COVID-19 pandemic has led to demand gravitating towards organised and trusted developers.

In terms of consumer profile, he said that apart from local buyers, NRIs comprise a substantial part of the buyer base that invests in plots/plotted developments.

"Plotted developments have witnessed a manifold appreciation in investment in the past few years. For example, according to a recent research untaken by a leading property analytics firm, plots in DLF City phase 1-4 in Gurugram, have witnessed an average appreciation of 229% from 2009 to 2019," Ohri said.

DLF, the country's largest realty firm, is targeting to achieve sales bookings of ₹2,500 crore in the ongoing fiscal, marginally better than previous year, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the 2019-20 financial year, DLF's sales booking stood at ₹2,485 crore.

DLF's whole-time director Ashok Tyagi had recently said: "Demand is coming back in the housing market. Enquiries from prospective home buyers are rising."

The COVID-19 pandemic has led people to think about home ownership, he had said.

DLF's sales bookings in the first half of this fiscal crossed ₹1,000 crore as sales in the second quarter rose sharply to ₹853 crore from ₹152 crore in the previous quarter.

"We are targeting to achieve ₹750 crore sales each in the December and March quarters," Tyagi had said.

DLF has posted 48% decline in its consolidated net profit at ₹232.14 crore for the quarter ended September 2020. Its net profit stood at ₹445.83 crore in the year-ago period.

Total income fell to ₹1,723.09 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal from ₹1,940.05 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

DLF's net debt stood at ₹5,215 crore at the end of the September quarter.

India’s economy contracts by 7.5%, enters recession

NEW DELHI, Nov 27: India’s gross domestic product or GDP contracted 7.5% in the quarter ending September in comparison to the same period last year, data released by the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation (Mospi) showed on Friday. India’s GDP fell by 23.9% in April-June period quarter, worst in decades, amid the coronavirus pandemic-induced which hit businesses and livelihoods across the country.

Analysts had said that they marked a significant improvement from the massive 23.9% contraction seen in the GDP numbers for the quarter ending June. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) internal model expected a GDP contraction of 8.6% in the September quarter. A recent research note by Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC Securities and Capital Markets, expected the contraction to be 7.9%. Economists in a Reuters poll had forecast GDP to shrink 8.8%, a contraction that would still amount to a technical recession.

The economy had grown at 3.1% in the January-March quarter, its slowest pace in at least eight years. The GDP data had shown that consumer spending slowing, private investments and exports contracting in the March quarter.

Data showed earlier that India’s GDP growth had slowed even before the Covid-19-induced lockdown restrictions. The growth rate in Q4 FY20 at 3.1% was the weakest point in the new data series that had started in 2012-2013. The FY20 real GDP growth is 4.2%, which is also the weakest in the series.

India’s economy grew at its weakest pace since 2013 between April and June period last year as consumer demand and government spending slowed amid global trade frictions, raising chances of the central bank cutting interest rates further at its next meeting. Asia’s third-largest economy expanded just 5.0% year on year, it grew 8% in the same quarter of 2018, and 5.8% in the previous quarter.

Global economies are experiencing contraction due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates to grab world’s second-richest ranking

NEW YORK, Nov 24: Elon Musk’s year of dizzying ascents hit a new apex Monday as the Tesla Inc. co-founder passed Bill Gates to become the world’s second-richest person.

The 49-year-old entrepreneur’s net worth soared $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion, driven by yet another surge in Tesla’s share price. Musk has added $100.3 billion to his net worth this year, the most of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people. In January he ranked 35th.

His advance up the wealth ranks has been driven largely by Tesla, whose market value is approaching $500 billion. About three-quarters of his net worth is comprised of Tesla shares, which are valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.

Musk’s milestone marks only the second time in the index’s eight-year history that Microsoft Corp. co-founder Gates has ranked lower than number two. He held the top spot for years before being bumped by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos in 2017. Gates’s net worth of $127.7 billion would be much higher had he not donated so prodigiously to charity over the years. He has given more than $27 billion to his namesake foundation since 2006.

With Monday’s move, Musk unseats an occasional verbal sparring partner in Gates, who the Tesla billionaire has ridiculed on Twitter for, among other things, having “no clue” about electric trucks. The two have also traded barbs over Covid-19. Gates, whose charitable foundation is one of the preeminent bodies backing vaccine research, has expressed concern over Musk’s stated suspicion of pandemic data and embrace of certain conspiracy theories.

The year has been a lucrative one for the world’s richest people. Despite the pandemic and widespread layoffs that have disproportionately affected the world’s working class and poor, the members of the Bloomberg index have collectively gained 23% -- or $1.3 trillion -- since the year began.

Coal India plans to invest ₹5,650 crore in solar power projects

KOLKATA, Nov 24: State-owned Coal India Ltd (CIL) plans to set up 14 rooftop and ground mounted solar power projects of 3,000 MW capacity by FY’24 at an estimated investment of around ₹5,650 crore.

CIL is mandated by the Ministry of Coal to become a net zero company. Solar power initiative is a part of the company’s diversification plans.

Of the total ₹5,650 crore, around ₹3,650 crore would be invested by CIL as a part of its capital expenditure till 2023-24, the rest would be met through joint venture models that the company intends to pursue for this initiative.

“Additionally, the solar power initiative helps CIL reduce its whopping annual power consumption expense, which was around ₹3,400 crore ending FY’20, accounting for around 4.4 per cent of the revenue expense for the year. Any saving under the power bill would also bolster the bottom line of the company,” a press statement issued by the company said.

Beginning with a modest 10-MW solar capacity during the ongoing fiscal, CIL would gradually peak up to 1,340 MW in 2023-24. For FY’23, solar power capacity addition is targeted at 1,293 MW, with 220 MW capacity to come up in 2021-22.

Coal Lignite Urja Vikas Private Ltd, the joint venture between CIL and NLC India Ltd, which was floated to develop 1,000-MW solar power projects, has come into being on November 10.

CIL has also tied up a joint venture with NTPC and an MoU with Solar Energy Corporation of India for solar projects of 1,000 MW each, the progress of which is being worked out individually.

Besides establishing solar projects, CIL is in discussions with NTPC for purchase of 140 MW solar power under the Central government’s CPSE Scheme.

CIL’s subsidiaries have already identified around 1,156 acres of land to set up around 220 MW solar projects by end FY’22. For 2022-23 and 2023-24, CIL is eyeing to set up solar projects on pan-India basis subject to power evacuation facility by Central transmission utility.

Cabinet approves PLI scheme for 10 sectors worth Rs 1.46 lakh crore

NEW DELHI, Nov 11: The Union Cabinet has approved Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for 10 sectors.

Total allocation under PLI may likely be of about Rs 1.46 lakh crore over five years. Among sectors, auto components and automobile sectors have received the maximum incentive of Rs 57,000 crore.

Other sectors include advance cell chemistry battery, pharmaceuticals, food products and white goods.

As per the scheme, the Centre will provide incentives on additional production and will allow companies to export products made in India.

Gold plunges 4% as stocks jump on Covid-19 vaccine euphoria

NEW YORK, Nov 9: Gold slumped more than 4% on Monday as news of the first successful late-stage Covid-19 vaccine trials prompted investors to dump safe-haven bullion and flock to riskier assets instead.

Spot gold was down 4.2% at $1,870.51 per ounce by 9:45 a.m. EDT (1445 GMT), while US gold futures slid 3.8% to $1,876.70.

Spot prices beat a sharp retreat from a near two-month peak of $1,965.33 hit earlier in the session amid a weaker dollar and hopes for more stimulus following Joe Biden’s victory in the US elections.

Equities surged after Pfizer Inc said its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective. Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE said they expect to seek US emergency use authorization later this month.

“(The news) really exceeded everyone’s best-case scenarios. There was growing nervousness that we might not get a strong vaccine result, so this unleashed the risk-on trade and for gold, signalled a massive exodus of safe-haven plays,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA.

However, he added “the economy is still in need of much support and only 50 million (vaccine) doses will be available, so we’re not in the clear with the virus and the calls for stimulus will be growing.”

Bullion, a hedge against currency debasement and inflation, has climbed 24% this year, mainly driven by unprecedented global pandemic-led stimulus.

“If you think that you’re living in the best of all worlds, then you don’t need gold,” said Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann.

“However, this assessment seems to be premature. And we’ve often seen in the past that at prices below $1,900, buying interest will come into the market - we would expect that to happen again this time.”

Other precious metals also sold off, with silver sliding 5.4% to $24.21 per ounce, platinum falling 3.2% to $860.36 and palladium shedding 0.8% to $2,471.28.

BigBasket faces potential data breach; details of 2 crore users put on sale on dark web

NEW DELHI, Nov 8: Grocery e-commerce platform Bigbasket has faced a potential data breach which could have leaked details of its around 2 crore users, according to cyber intelligence firm Cyble.

The company has filed a police complaint in this regard with Cyber Crime Cell in Bengaluru and is verifying claims made by cyber experts.

Cyble said that a hacker has put data allegedly belonging to Bigbasket on sale for around Rs 30 lakh.

“In the course of our routine dark web monitoring, the research team at Cyble found the database of Big Basket for sale in a cyber crime market, being sold for over USD 40,000. The leak contains a database portion; with the table name ‘member_member’. The size of the SQL file is about 15 GB, containing close to 20 million user data,” Cyble said in its blog.

It added the data put on sale includes names, email IDs, password hashes, contact numbers (mobile and phone), addresses, date of birth, location, and IP addresses of login among many others.

While Cyble has mentioned “passwords”, the company uses a one-time password sent through SMS which keeps on changing every time a user logs in.

“A few days ago, we learnt about a potential data breach at Bigbasket and are evaluating the extent of the breach and authenticity of the claim in consultation with cybersecurity experts and finding immediate ways to contain it. We have also lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell in Bengaluru and intend to pursue this vigorously to bring the culprits to book,” Bigbasket said in a statement.

The company said that the privacy and confidentiality of customers is priority and it does not store any financial data including credit card numbers etc and is confident that this financial data is secure.

“The only customer data that we maintain are email IDs, phone numbers, order details, and addresses so these are the details that could potentially have been accessed. We have a robust information security framework that employs best-in-class resources and technologies to manage our information. We will continue to proactively engage with best-in-class information security experts to strengthen this further,” Bigbasket said.

The Bengaluru-based company is funded by Alibaba Group, Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, and the UK government-owned CDC group.

Cyble claimed that the breach occurred on October 30, 2020 and it has already informed the management of Bigbasket about it.

The cyber intelligence firm said on October 31, Cyble validated the breach through “validation of the leaked data with BigBasket users/information”, and on November 1, “Cyble disclosed the breach to Bigbasket management”.

SBI records 52 % jump in profit in second quarter, retail credit growth back to pre-pandemic level

BENGALURU, Nov 4: State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender by assets, said on Wednesday profit jumped 52% in the second quarter as bad loan provisions fell, with retail credit growth returning to pre-pandemic levels as economic activity picks up.

SBI’s results underscore a recovery in consumer demand during India’s festive season as the bank’s retail loans grew more than 14.5%, although regulatory measures aimed at helping borrowers - including a one-time loan restructuring - are likely to slow the banking sector’s recovery.

Several public sector banks as well as their private rivals in the country have seen profits increase as bad loan provisions dropped or interest income rose.

Sanctions and disbursements for SBI during the second quarter were significantly higher than last year across most retail products, the bank said in a statement. Home loans, which constitute 23% of domestic advances, grew 10.34%.

“SBI’s operating performance has come above expectations, driven by lower cost of deposits,” said Rajiv Mehta, executive vice-president at brokerage Yes Securities.

“The numbers also show that SBI was able to gain market share across key product areas of home loans, auto loans and personal loans,” he said.

Net profit rose to 45.74 billion rupees ($611.75 million) for the three months ended Sept. 30, from 30.12 billion rupees a year earlier, beating analysts’ expectations of 33.33 billion rupees.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans eased to 5.28% from 5.44% in the June quarter, after a top court directive that banks should not recognize non-performing assets until further orders.

Net interest margin rose 12 basis points to 3.34%, while provisions for bad loans slid 50%

China suspends Jack Ma’s Ant group Shanghai IPO after warning

BEIJING, Nov 3: China has suspended the Shanghai leg of Ant Group Co.’s $35 billion offering, potentially derailing the world’s biggest initial public offering.

The Shanghai stock exchange will suspend the listing amid changes in the regulatory environment, it said in a statement Tuesday without providing further details. The debut was expected for Thursday, the same day as the Hong Kong portion.

The shock move comes after China’s regulators warned that Jack Ma’s firm faces increased scrutiny and will be subject to the same restrictions on capital and leverage as banks. Ma, Ant’s billionaire co-founder, was summoned to a rare joint meeting on Monday with the country’s central bank and three other top financial regulators.

Ant’s decision to list on the Star board, a market launched in Shanghai last year, was seen as a major win for mainland exchanges. The IPO had sparked a frenzy among individual investors, with about $2.8 trillion worth of subscriptions for the Shanghai leg alone. In the preliminary price consultation of its Shanghai IPO, institutional investors subscribed for over 76 billion shares, more than 284 times the initial offering tranche.

Ant has faced scrutiny in Chinese state media in recent days after Ma criticized local and global regulators for stifling innovation and not paying sufficient heed to development and opportunities for the young. At a Shanghai conference late last month, he compared the Basel Accords, which set out capital requirements for banks, to a club for the elderly.

GST collection crosses Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for first time since February

NEW DELHI, Nov 1: GST collections in October stood at over Rs 1.05 lakh crore, crossing for the first time Rs 1 lakh crore mark since February this year, the finance ministry said on Sunday.

The total number of GSTR-3B returns filed till October 31, 2020, is 80 lakh.

The gross GST revenue collected in the month of October 2020 is Rs 1,05,155 crore of which CGST is Rs 19,193 crore, SGST is Rs 5,411 crore, IGST is Rs 52,540 crore (including Rs 23,375 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 8,011 crore (including Rs 932 crore collected on import of goods), the ministry said in a statement.

The revenue for the month is 10 per cent higher than Rs 95,379 crore collected in the same month last year.The Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections fell from the psychologically important Rs 1 lakh crore mark as the lockdown imposed to contain the COVID-19 spread dented economic activity.

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