India’s government has asked state-run companies to buy back shares, people with knowledge of the matter said, as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to narrow Asia’s widest budget deficit without cutting stimulus spending.
The boards of Coal India Ltd, MOIL Ltd, NMDC Ltd, National Aluminium Co, India Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd are among those that will have to decide on valuations, the people said, asking not to be identified as the talks are private. These companies had about 784.5 billion rupees (US$11.6 billion) in cash and marketable securities last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, more than double Modi’s social welfare budget.
A revenue boost is crucial as back-to-back years of weak rainfall compel Modi to spur demand in rural areas even as pressure mounts to avoid runaway spending. The rupee, sovereign bonds and stocks had their worst January since 2011, weighed down by the global slowdown and as concerns about fiscal slippage mount.
While weak global demand denies companies adequate returns on their investment, falling share prices offer them a good chance to consolidate ownership, the people said. About 50 listed state-run companies had a total of 2 trillion rupees in cash and marketable securities last year.
“The Finance Ministry has written to us about a 25 percent share buyback by Nalco,” Indian Mines Secretary Balvinder Kumar said last week, referring to National Aluminium. While the department was expecting 13 billion rupees from a 10 percent stake, it could not say for sure how much it will receive, he added.
IREDA chairman KS Popli said the government’s decision is a “good move” that will improve companies’ valuations and earnings per share.
Coal India chairman Sutirtha Bhattacharya and NMDC spokesman Rafique Ahmed did not immediately answer multiple calls seeking comment. An e-mail to Neeraj Dutt Pandey, MOIL’s company secretary was not immediately answered. Finance Ministry spokesman D.S. Malik said he could not immediately comment.
India had asked state companies to invest their surplus cash or pay dividends of at least 30 percent on net profits. While India will probably meet its deficit goal of 3.9 percent of GDP for the year through March, investors including Standard Chartered PLC and Morgan Stanley predict it will deviate from its 3.5 percent aim next year when it presents its budget on Feb. 29.
Missing fiscal targets could push up bond yields and erode the government’s credibility, central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan said last month.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six