Valuation Financial News

Byju's as well as Pharmeasy in its earnings presentation on Wednesday. Prosus had in November last year marked down Byju’s valuation to $5.9 billion, a far cry from the troubled edtech company’s peak valuation a few years ago at $22 billion. Prosus reported revenue at $2.6 billion for the first half of FY2024, a 118% jump over the corresponding year-earlier period, while registering growth across multiple businesses as well as in most of the startups that it is invested in India.

MUMBAI (Reuters) — Prosus (OTC:PROSF) NV, an investor in once-hot Indian education firm Byju's said on Wednesday it is valuing the firm at under $3 billion, 86% less than its peak valuation of $22 billion last year, as the company has struggled with governance and cash flow problems.

Ervin Tu, interim CEO of technology investor Prosus, said the company has marked down Byju’s valuation further, below $3 billion. Tu, who took over the reins from Bob van Dijk in September, commented on the edtech’s valuation in an earnings call, after disclosing Prosus’s half-yearly results up to September. “We are not disclosing the (exact) valuation, but it is sub-$3 billion,” said Tu. In March, Prosus had valued Byju’s at about $5.1 billion. It holds a stake of nearly 10% in the troubled edtech firm.

By Jonathan Stempel

Sebi Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch has said the regulator would certainly look into the matter if disclosures on the valuation are meaningless. The comments have come amid a slew of share sales hitting the capital market recently. Last week, five companies, including Tata Technologies, came out with their IPOs that garnered a record Rs 2.6 lakh crore in application amount. To a query about high premiums for some shares in IPOs, Buch said, «Of course, we are fully with you on this as the rationale given for high premia are nothing but some meaningless English words». «We are certainly going to look into it and address the issue,» she said. When asked about concerns in some quarters that some IPOs are priced exorbitantly, the Sebi chief said, «If disclosures on valuation are meaningless then we will certainly look into it.» It can be noted that to boost investors' interest in little-known companies' IPOs, the issuers and their investment bankers quote low face value but the issue is priced high citing a very high premium. On whether Sebi is planning to advise issuers and other market makers to space their issues in a more timely manner and with enough gaps between two issues, Buch said that is not the job of the regulator.

Raymond James analysts upgraded shares of Crocs (NASDAQ:CROX) to Strong Buy from Outperform on Tuesday, raising the price target to $115 from $98 per share.

HDFC Securities noted that the key theme of the quarter was the continuation of input cost deflation, which helped companies improve their profitability in-spite of muted YoY revenue growth. It believes this benefit of commodity cost deflation is largely over and now future earnings growths have to be volume-led.

Shein IPO: Firm in talks with banks, exchanges for listing, says report Representatives for Shein, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The filing was reported earlier by Shanghai Securities News.

Independent market expert Mahantesh Sabarad says “this could probably be the good time to lock in your home buying activity because you will potentially see interest rates falling as you go ahead because most of the home loans are variable interest rate structured, you will tend to find that benefit coming in. I do not believe that this is the time to get into the cement companies as a play on the real estate sector. ” Do you think cement and building materials is a better way to play the real estate theme right now because the real estate developers themselves have run up quite substantially? Yes, sometimes it does make sense to play in the real estate segment through the cement companies but not always.

Richard Liu, MD-Institutional Equities Research, JM Financial Institutional Securities, says “the way a lot of businesses are going about doing their business planning is that the endeavour is actually to grow faster than the GDP of the country. There are many categories of consumption, which are able to do that. If you are able to do that sustainably and profitably, that is where you have the winners.” Overall, from the investor's point of view, where does the interest lie and what is the view on India right now? The mood is bullish.

'perpetual bonds' — complex securities that have sparked debates and court battles but without which many high-street banks would find it tough to raise capital in the coming years. Financial market authorities are examining a possible change in the way the securities are valued to stoke investor interest in the quasi-equity papers, better known as 'additional tier-1', or AT1 bonds, three persons familiar with the discussions told ET. The government, financial market regulators, banks (which issue such bonds), and asset managers (which invest in them) have discussed the matter in the weeks before the Diwali holiday. Banks and mutual funds chiefs have had meetings with the Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) which formulates the valuation rules.

market valuation of seven out of the top 10 valued firms witnessed a significant increase of ₹1,50,679.28 crore (or ₹1.50 lakh crore) in the past week, PTI reported. This surge was primarily led by IT giants Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, amidst a generally positive trend in equities, it added.

Crypto exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com closed a $110 million Series E financing round, an investment that more than halves its previous 2022 valuation of $14 billion.

India presents a promising growth story and, ideally, a sustainable one, but the inflow of investments may not match the scale witnessed in China, said Krishna Memani, chief investment officer at Pennsylvania- based Lafayette College's endowment fund. In an interview with Rajesh Mascarenhas, the seasoned money manager said sectors like healthcare and technology can deliver exceptional growth. Edited excerpts: What is your evaluation of India and where does it fit in your portfolio allocation? India's economic growth will be decent, perhaps not as turbocharged as it has been over the last few years. But it will still be the world's largest or fastest growing economy by a wide metric. Although India is an expensive market, foreign investors may have to accept this reality to participate in its growth potential, hoping that growth justifies the high valuation. However, Indian stakeholders must remain cautious. While India presents a promising growth story and, ideally, a sustainable one, the inflow of investments may not match the scale witnessed in China. Therefore, expectations should not outpace the capital allocation process. India is attracting attention from global fund managers alongside Brazil, albeit for different reasons, making them the focal point in the emerging market landscape.

By Abigail Summerville

MUMBAI : Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand Sugar Cosmetics is looking to raise $100 million in a new funding round that will value the company at around $700-800 million, said three people with knowledge of the development. About 60-70% of this fundraise will happen through issuance of fresh equity and the rest through stake sales by existing investors, they said. The company is in talks with sovereign wealth funds and private equity funds to raise the amount.

WeWork filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States on Monday, as part of what it described as a «comprehensive reorganization» of its business. The startup, which was once worth about $47 billion, had started sending distress signals months in advance.

Shein is touting its hopes for a valuation of as much as $90 billion as it lays the groundwork for an eventual US initial public offering, a level that far exceeds how the fast-fashion giant is valued in private trades, according to people familiar with the matter. The company has told prospective investors that it’s aiming to fetch a valuation of $80 billion to $90 billion in a listing, the people said. The timing of the share sale remains uncertain given the market volatility, according to the people. In private trades, Shein’s valuation has dropped below the $66 billion it got in a funding round in May, the people said.

Vinay Paharia, CIO, PGIM India MF, says “financials is an area of opportunity, to be very frank because there are lots of good quality companies or private banks or NBFCs with very strong structural growth ahead of them. These are the companies which have much higher than average return on equity and they have clearly been stable businesses. We are clearly overweight private banks and non-bank financial companies and see this as a great source of opportunity.” What is your market outlook in terms of how the valuations stack up versus the earnings growth that we have seen in the quarter gone by? Definitely the valuations currently are at a premium and are seemingly capturing most of the fundamentals for the next six months to one year. We have borrowed some returns from the future and hence, for the near term we are a little bit cautious purely on valuation reasons.

Not just numbers', Elon Musk goes emotional on Tesla earnings call; Analysts call him ‘little baby’ The downward trend began earlier this month when Tesla revised down its growth expectations in its third-quarter earnings call. This move was followed by pessimistic comments from various global automakers and Wall Street analysts. Recently, battery-maker Panasonic Holdings Corp.

₹1,701 crore, with the issue set to open on 31 October. Claiming to be the fastest company in the category to hit revenues of ₹1,000 crore, it plans to earmark ₹365 crore primarily to amplify its offline presence, explore inorganic growth, and enhance its research and development efforts. With a valuation pegged at $1.2 billion, or ₹10,000 crore at ₹324 per share, Honasa has garnered significant attention and critique on social media regarding its IPO strategies and red herring prospectus.