Sundaram BNP Paribas Home Finance Q4 profit up 4.28%

Sundaram BNP Paribas Home Finance on Saturday said Q4 profits rose only 4.28% to Rs 31.73 crore from last year attributing the less than stellar performance to the downturn in the real estate market.

For the full year, the Chennai-based lender's profit was up only 4.3% to Rs 153 crore from last year, as year-over-year revenue from operations fell 2.8% to Rs 927 crore. The home lender's net NPA stood at 0.98%.

"We see good potential in the rural segment and have stepped up our efforts in this segment. Also, we have been actively pursuing buying portfolios of affordable housing finance companies and will continue to focus on the opportunities in this segment," said Srinivas Acharya, MD, Sundaram Home Finance, which aims to raise Rs 2,500 crore this year through a mix of funding instruments. The company's fixed deposits crossed the Rs 1,000 crore mark and stood at Rs 1,022 crore as of March 31, 2016.

With 10 branches, first small finance bank kicks off operations

The bank’s business is projected to increase four-fold from Rs 3,000 crore as on March 31, 2016 to Rs 12,000 crore and branch network to 216 by March 2021.

Jalandhar-based Capital Small Finance Bank Ltd, India’s first small finance bank, has commenced operations. The bank kicked off operations with ten branches.

In the current fiscal, the bank would consolidate in Punjab by adding 29 branches. The bank’s business is projected to increase four-fold from Rs 3,000 crore as on March 31, 2016 to Rs 12,000 crore and branch network to 216 by March 2021.

Capital Small Finance Bank has been set up by converting the erstwhile Capital Local Area Bank Ltd. “Consequently, the bank ceases to exist with effect from April 24, 2016. It was one of the 10 applicants to be given in-principle approval for setting up SFBs as announced by the Reserve Bank in its press release dated September 16, 2015,” the RBI said.

Ten selected applicants include Au Financiers (Jaipur), Capital Local Area Bank (Jalandhar), Disha Microfin (Ahmedabad), Equitas Holdings (Chennai), ESAF Microfinance and Investments (Chennai), Janalakshmi Financial Services (Bengaluru), RGVN (Northeast) Microfinance (Guwahati), Suryoday Micro Finance (Navi Mumbai), Ujjivan Financial Services (Bengaluru) and Utkarsh Micro Finance (Varanasi).

The small finance bank will primarily undertake basic banking activities of acceptance of deposits and lending to unserved and underserved sections including small business units, small and marginal farmers, micro and small industries and unorganised sector entities.

There won’t be any restrictions in the area of operations of small finance banks. The minimum paid-up equity capital for small finance banks shall be Rs 100 crore.

The promoter’s minimum initial contribution to the paid-up equity capital of such a small finance bank should at least be 40 per cent and gradually brought down to 26 per cent within 12 years from the date of commencement of business of the bank.

The RBI had granted approval to 11 entities for launching payments banks in August 2015. It had given approval to IDFC and Bandhan to start universal banks last year.

Meanwhile, microfinance player Ujjivan Financial Services, which got the RBI nod for a small finance bank, will hit capital markets on Thursday to raise nearly Rs 885 crore through an initial public offering.

Government raises Rs 8,152 crore via NTPC bonus debenture sale to EPFO

NEW DELHI: The government raised Rs 8,152 crore in 2015-16 by selling bonus debentures of NTPC to EPFO, Parliament was informed today. 

Disinvestment in central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) is undertaken as per the extant disinvestment policy of the government, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today. 

He said the government raised as much as Rs 23,997.29 crore in 2015-16 by diluting its stake in various CPSEs. 

"Further, the government has raised Rs 8,152 crore on account of sale of bonus debentures of NTPC to EPFO," Sinha said in the reply. 

Besides, an additional amount of Rs 1,023 crore (approximately) was realised as buyback tax on account of buyback transactions undertaken by unlisted CPSEs during 2015-16, he added. 

Buyback helps a company reduce equity by using idle cash and hence, provide better returns to shareholders. 

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has helped the exchequer garner Rs 4,500 crore through buyback of shares by Hindustan Aeronautics and Bharat Dynamics in March. 

In the Budget 2016-17, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government will leverage the assets of CPSEs for generation of resources for investment in new projects. 

The NITI Aayog will identify the CPSEs for strategic sale. 

"We will encourage CPSEs to divest individual assets like land, manufacturing units, etc to release their asset value for making investment in new projects," Jaitley had said.

MTR Foods to invest Rs 200 crore in 3-5 years to scale up

MTR Foods on Tuesday said it will invest about Rs 200 crore in the next three to five years to scale up its manufacturing infrastructure.

The company also announced the opening of its new e-commerce platform, which will give consumers access to its entire range of products.

"Another big thing that we are doing is around operations and manufacturing, which is really in preparation for the future. If we have to grow... we will need additional capacity, we will need additional investment," MTR Foods CEO Sanjay Sharma told reporters here.

"We have put together a plan internally, based on our growth plans, to invest close to about Rs 200 crore in the next three to five years.

"This will be on increasing our capacity from close to about 45,000 tonnes to about 72,000 tonnes with state-of-the- art equipment and high quality infrastructure," he said.

In 2007, Norwegian conglomerate Orkla took over MTR Foods, which has been serving authentic Indian food for about 90 years.

Stating that MTR's capacity was about 18-20,000 tonnes when Orkla took over, Sharma said since then "we have doubled it."

"We have invested close to about Rs 220 crore just in capital investment and improving the standards of the factory, and took the capacity to about 45,000 tonnes," he added.

The company has a facility at Bommasandra in the city.

MTR today has a size of about Rs 700 crore with a compounded annual growth rate of 18 per cent. It has over 140 products.

"We have very high expectations out of MTR, we expect touching close to Rs 2,000 crore as we go ahead into 2020," he said.

Pointing out that MTR has retained number one position in all categories it serves, the company officials said exports form about 10 per cent of the business.

KPMG's offshore arm in India appoints Sameer Chadha as CEO

NEW DELHI: KPMG's offshore arm in India has appointed Sameer Chadha as its Partner and CEO.

Chadha joins KPMG Global Services (KGS) from Barclays Shared Services, where he was the Chief Executive Officer.

"KGS is integral to KPMG Global as well as the India strategy and we are confident that with Sameer's leadership, KGS will progress to the next level of growth and expansion," Richard Rekhy, CEO, KPMG in India, said.

Chadha has 25 years of experience with leading organisations across the financial services and consumer goods sectors. Prior to working with Barclays, he held strategic leadership roles at firms such as Bank of America, First Source Solutions and Lehman Brothers.

He is a chartered accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University.

BGR Energy rallies on settlement agreement with Hitachi, Japan

BGR Energy Systems has rallied 17% to Rs 124 on the BSE in early morning trade after the company announced that it has executed agreement with Hitachi, Japan and Hitachi Power Europe GmbH (HPE), Germany to settle their disputes.

“The agreement provides for certain payments to be made by HTC to the company in a phased manner over a period of time on achievement of number of milestones/events/transactions so as to realise the objectives mentioned hereinabove,” BGR Energy said in a press release.

The agreement has come into effect and has become legally binding with effect from 29th April, 2016 upon fulfillment of the conditions mentioned therein.

The agreement, inter alia, provides for, execution of NTPC contracts for Solapur (2 x 660 MW) and Meja (2 x 660 MW) of Supercritical Steam Generators (Boilers) and Lara (2 x 800 MW) Supercritical Steam Turbines and Generators (STG) (collectively referred to as "NTPC Projects") and for certain arrangement with respect to the future of the joint venture (JV) relationship between HTC, HPE and the Company in respect of the existing Joint Venture companies viz., BGR Boilers Private Limited and BGR Turbines Company Private Limited after completion of the NTPC Projects in compliance of the NTPC contract and other related conditions.

These JV companies were formed in the year 2010 for technical and financial collaboration for manufacture of super critical boilers and steam turbines and generators.

The company said, in fulfillment of the conditions of the Agreement, the Company has filed relevant applications for withdrawal of all pending litigation and other legal proceedings filed against HTC, HPE, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd. and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Europe GmbH.

At 09:49 am, the stock was up 15% at Rs 122 on the BSE. A combined 1.71 million shares changed hands so far against an average sub 200,000 shares that were traded daily in past two weeks on the BSE and NSE.

ICICI Prudential invests Rs 150 crore in Signature Global

NEW DELHI: ICICI Prudential's real estate fund has invested Rs 150 crore in realty firm Signature Global for the development of ongoing and future affordable housing projects. 

Signature Global, one of the key stakeholder of financial investment firm SMC Group, is developing four housing projects comprising of 4,500 dwelling units in Gurgaon under the Haryana government's affordable housing policy.

The company will launch its fifth affordable housing project tomorrow, which has about 730 units, at Gurgaon in a price range Rs 16-22 lakh. 

"We have raised Rs 150 crore from ICICI Prudential's real estate fund. The amount has been raised in debt form at group level," Signature Global Chairman and Co-Founder Pradeep Aggarwal told PTI. 

"The fund will be used for the development of our current five affordable housing projects and also to acquire new projects," he added. 

KPMG India acted as the financial advisor to Signature Global for the transaction. 

Aggarwal said the company is exploring opportunities for affordable housing projects in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh besides Haryana. 

Signature global is looking to add 7-8 new projects this fiscal, he added. 

"We have got good response for all 4 projects which have been launched so far, with each of them getting oversubscribed by almost 3-4 times at the time of launch," he said. 

The construction work on all the four projects have commenced and the same would be completed in the scheduled four years time. 

Aggarwal said although the margins are less in affordable housing projects, the sales volumes are higher.