Manufacturing Financial News

Japanese stocks have again set a record, a day after U.S. stocks climbed to all-time highs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for projects worth ₹35,700 crore in Jharkhand. The Prime Minister is on a two-day visit to Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Bihar on March 1 and 2. Here are the top ten updates: 1.

India Q3 GDP data: Indian economy grows by 8.4% in Dec quarter driven by construction, manufacturing sector Asia's third-largest and the world's fastest-growing major economy expanded 8.4% in the October-December quarter, partly helped by a surge in manufacturing, according to data released by the government on Thursday. That growth rate was much stronger than the 6.6% expansion predicted in a Reuters survey, where the highest forecast was 7.4%. The manufacturing sector, which accounts for 17% of India's economy, expanded 11.6% year-on-year last quarter.

₹7,600 crore (or $222 million) semiconductor facility in Sanand, Gujarat, as part of India's chip push. The Union Cabinet on February 29 approved the establishment of three semiconductor plants with a combined investment of ₹1.26 lakh crore. To encourage domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, the government is also offering incentives amounting to ₹76,000 crore.

India's manufacturing industry enjoyed robust growth in February with activity expanding at its fastest pace in five months, led by accelerated global demand and lower inflationary pressures, a private survey showed. The HSBC final India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, compiled by S&P Global, rose to 56.9 in February from January's 56.5, beating a preliminary estimate of 56.7. India's manufacturing PMI has been above the 50-mark that separates growth from contraction for 32 months.

Europe’s tool to tax pollution linked to goods made abroad underline the challenges of motivating companies worldwide to go greener. Slow communication and technical difficulties have held up businesses’ compliance with the European Union’s new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which is designed to protect local producers against competition from countries with lower environmental standards. In Germany, less than 10% of companies have registered to the platform as of Feb. 28, according to people familiar with the matter. Given the issues, the European Commission extended its deadline to submit reports for a second time — until the end of March — in an announcement made to member states this week, said the people, who asked not to be named as the details are private.

Deepak Shenoy, Founder, Capital Mind, says: “We would like to buy more when the stocks go up rather than just on declines. But we are still very positive on a few themes that are very specifically India, because of the infrastructure changes, because of the focus on a lot of Indian local domestic improvements where adding more players in logistics for instance allows us to see the urban and rural consumption divide narrowing down over a period of time because of accessibility, roads, rail, and cargo infrastructure. We are adding a few players. We have very little changes from last time but we have added a couple of special situations. Indian manufacturing space is where we are targeting. From semiconductors to a bunch of players around infrastructures, around domestic manufacturing, auto ancillaries we have added.” I understand you were part of that meeting where the finance minister met the fintechs. What really came out of it, was Paytm top of the heap? Deepak Shenoy: No, we were talking more about the problems faced by the fintech industry in general from a perspective of what could be done to improve the situation. Some of them involve a deeper consultation with the RBI, some of them are issues around how the taxation laws are created, some of them were ideas about new products.

Narendra Modi on Friday said the upcoming semiconductor units will further strengthen India's «transformative journey» towards technological self-reliance. The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved proposals to set up three semiconductor plants, including a mega fab by Tata Group, at a cumulative investment of Rs 1.26 lakh crore, as India moves to position itself as a global powerhouse in chip manufacturing. Modi said on X, «With the Cabinet approval of three semiconductor units under the India Semiconductor Mission, we are further strengthening our transformative journey towards technological self-reliance. This will also ensure India emerges as a global hub in semiconductor manufacturing.»

The floor price is 381 times the face value of shares at Re 1 apiece while the cap price is 401 times.

With PSU stocks rallying non-stop amid heavy buying by retail investors, Anish Tawakley, Deputy CIO – Equity, ICICI Prudential AMC, says his team has turned cautious on the PSU space since the start of 2024 due to valuation concerns and have been gradually trimming PSU holdings. “Over the past three years, PSUs have moved from being one of the cheapest segments in the market to a situation where some of the PSUs are today overvalued. This has been largely possible owing to the good work done by the PSU managements coupled with the way the government has ensured that these companies worked in the interest of the shareholders,” Tawakley says. Edited excerpts from a chat with the fund manager: ICICI Prudential Business Cycle Fund has outperformed in the last 3 years by nearly doubling money. These 3 years have been very interesting because many cycles came and went. How did you manage to thrive in the shifting cyclical landscape? Anish Tawakley: Three years back the economy had spare capacity and was experiencing weak demand.

India’s official gross domestic product (GDP) growth data suggests the economy is on fire, even if not firing on all cylinders. At 7.6%, the latest growth estimate for 2023-24 is better than the 7.3% the government had earlier predicted, which itself was an upward surprise. At this rate, the current fiscal year will mark quite a pick-up from 2022-23, when the economy grew a revised 7% (down from 7.2%) and many had expected it to lose pace thereafter.

chip unit began operating as a standalone business at the beginning of the year, and on Thursday outlined its plans for the future and its official name: "Altera, an Intel company." The parent company plans to hold a stock offering for Altera over the next two to three years. Rivera said the programmable chips Altera designs are useful for AI applications and computing tasks that fall in between the purpose-built custom processors designed by cloud computing companies like Amazon.com and the general-use AI chips made by Nvidia.

Suven Pharmaceuticals: Global private equity firm Advent International has merged two of its pharmaceutical portfolio firms, Cohance Lifesciences and Suven Pharmaceuticals, according to a joint announcement. The merged entity will have three distinct business units – Pharma CDMO, Spec Chem CDMO, and API+ (inclusive of formulations), the release said. For every 11 shares of Suven, 295 shares of Cohance will be allotted, as per the terms of the merger.

Sensex gained 195.42 points, or 0.27%, to close at 72,500.30, while the Nifty 50 settled 31.65 points, or 0.14%, higher at 21,982.80. “Recent global economic data releases pushed investors back after a rally that was seen recently. Further, the US Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), holds key importance from an interest rate perspective.

Eastman Kodak Co. is disbanding the team that manages the firm’s $4 billion of pension investments, according to people with knowledge of the matter. 

BSE. Advent entities shall own around 66.7% stake and the public shareholders will hold around 33% stake in the merged entity. This ratio is pre-ESOP dilution," the firms clarified in the release.

NLC India, apart from Ola Electric, Jindal Power and Dalmia Group, are among bidders for 20 blocks in the first tranche of auction for critical mineral blocks in the country. The Union mines ministry on Thursday said it has received more than 50 bids for the 20 critical and strategic mineral blocks in the first tranche, which was launched on 29 November. These blocks consisted of minerals like lithium, glauconite, nickel, PGE, potash, graphite, molybdenum, phosphorite and rare earth elements (REE).

Kesoram has completed the refinancing of its nearly Rs 1900 crore high-cost debt, yielding a benefit of almost 800 basis points in interest rates, a senior company official said on Thursday. The company borrowed approximately Rs 1900 crore in March 2021 from a group of investors in Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) and Optionally Convertible Debentures (OCDs) at an interest rate of close to 19 per cent. On Thursday, the company announced the redemption of the entire outstanding outstanding NCD amounting to Rs 1487 crore before maturity. OCDs were redeemed earlier, officials said. «We have refinanced the entire debt on our books. We have refinanced about Rs 1500 crore from Tata Capital group and another Rs 350 crore from Hero Finance,» Kesoram's whole-time director & CEO P Radhakrishnan told PTI.

Indian auto industry is set to invest up to $7 billion, or about Rs 58,000 crore, by FY28 to deepen localisation of advanced components from electric motors to automatic transmissions to reduce imports and capitalise on multinationals’ ‘China Plus One’ sourcing strategy. Automakers and their suppliers are likely to make this investment between FY24 and FY28, industry body Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA) said. These firms have already undertaken more than 500 localisation projects across 11 key component categories including drive transmissions and steering, engines, electricals and body chassis at an investment of over Rs 3,000 crore to reduce net imports by 5.8% (double the target of about 3%), or by Rs 7,018 crore, in the two years to FY22, as per the latest assessment on localisation programmes jointly conducted by ACMA and Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Cohance Lifesciences Ltd on Thursday signed a definitive agreement to merge their businesses, which will further strengthen the former’s position in the contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) space. Promoter of Suven Pharma, Advent International, had said last year that it would merge the two businesses post the buyout of its significant stake in Suven Pharma.

Advent International on Thursday announced the merger of privately held Cohance Lifescience with listed Suven Pharma to create the 1st private equity led listed contract manufacturing company, making it one the largest largest such home grown CDMO platform Divi’s Lab’s For every 295 shares of Cohance, 11 new shares of Suven will be issued, the companies said in a statement after the Suven board meeting. Suven has been 50% owned by Advent with the remaining with public and institutional shareholders while Cohance is wholly owned by the PE group. Now post merger, Advent will own 66.7% in the combined entity and the public shareholders the rest.