1. Indian Exchanges Not To Share Market Data With Foreign Peers
India’s three stock exchanges will stop sharing data with foreign peers to prevent volumes from moving overseas, they said in a joint statement. The decision will halt derivatives tied to Nifty 50 Index and S&P BSE Sensex and stocks on Singapore and Dubai stock exchanges.
The licence with SGX to trade Nifty futures will get terminated, National Stock Exchange’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Vikram Limaye told BloombergQuint in a phone interview.
India’s largest exchange will issue the termination notice to end the contract in six months, he said. “We cannot disclose the details of the financial arrangement, but we have taken a broader call in the interest of consolidating the Indian markets.”
(Source: BloombergQuint)
2. SBI Reports Rs 2,416 Crore Loss As Bad Loans Surge
State Bank of India (SBI), India’s biggest lender by assets, on Friday reported a net loss of Rs 2,416 crore for the fiscal third quarter after setting aside funds to cover rising bad loans and losses on its bond portfolio.
It had reported a net profit of Rs 1,582 crore in the September quarter. This was the lender’s first quarter under the chairmanship of Rajnish Kumar, who took over in October.
In a post-results teleconference, Kumar said that in addition to provisions related to non-performing assets (NPAs), the bank kept aside Rs 3,400 crore as a mark-to-market provision on account of rising bond yields. It also made a Rs 700 crore provision for the next round of employee wage hikes.
The previous wage revision agreement for employees of state-owned banks expired on 31 October.
(Source: Livemint)
3. Wall St Bounces Back 1%; Yields on 10-Year US Notes End Week Little Changed
Wall Street's three main indexes rose more than 1 percent on Friday, bouncing back from a steep selloff this week that pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 into correction territory.
Stocks had plunged 4 percent on Thursday, sending the Dow and the S&P more than 10 percent below their record highs on 26 January and adding to the sense that rising US government bond yields had begun a major correction to nine years of near uninterrupted gains for Wall Street.
(Source: Business Standard)
4. Number of Income Tax Non-Filers Falls By Half In 2017
The number of Indians who made high-value transactions but didn’t file tax returns fell by half in 2017 as the government increased monitoring of financial data.
About 35 lakh people failed to file tax returns in 2017 versus 67.54 lakh a year ago, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley informed Parliament today.
The Income Tax Department set up a Non-Filer Monitoring System that collects and analyses data received from statements of financial transactions, tax deduction at source, and tax collection at source to identify individuals or entities that made high value financial transactions but didn’t file returns.
There is nothing unusual in the fall in the number of non-filers, Rahul Jain, partner-direct taxes at Nangia & Co Chartered Accountants, told BloombergQuint.
(Source: Bloomberg Quint)
5. Singhs Said to Have Taken $78 Million From Fortis Healthcare
India’s tycoon Singh brothers took at least 5 billion rupees ($78 million) out of the publicly-traded hospital company they control without board approval about a year ago, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The funds were reported on the balance sheet of Fortis Healthcare Ltd as cash and cash equivalents, but the money was routed and placed under the control of the Singhs at the time, according to the people. Fortis’s auditor, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP, refused to sign off on the company’s second-quarter results until the funds were accounted for or returned, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.
A spokesman for Fortis said the company loaned 4.73 billion rupees to “certain corporate bodies in normal course of treasury operations” as of July 2017, and in the third quarter of the current financial year those companies subsequently became part of the Singhs’ corporate group.
(Source: BloombergQuint)
6. Direct Tax Collections Rise 19% to Rs 6.95 Trillion in April-January
The direct tax collection swelled by 19.3 percent to Rs 6.95 trillion in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year. The government had estimated the collections to grow by 18.3 percent for 2017-18 in the Budget. If the Budget Estimates are taken into account, growth was projected at 15.3 percent for the current financial year.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in Parliament that the figures were attributable to the government's measures against black money. Jaitley said he expected growth rate would be 14-15 per cent. The collections, net of refunds, represented 69.2 percent of the Revised Estimates of Rs 10.05 trillion for direct taxes in 2017-18.
Much of the tax collections come in the last month of a financial year.
(Source: Business Standard)
7. Angel Investor Mahesh Murthy Arrested in Molestation Case
Angel investor Mahesh Murthy was today arrested here in connection with a molestation case, police said. Murthy, 52, was arrested in suburban Bandra, they said.
Murthy was booked on 29 December under IPC Sections 354 (D) (stalking) and 509 (word or gesture intended to hurt the modesty of a woman) and relevant provisions of the IT Act, based on a 32 year-old woman's complaint, police said.
A case was registered by the Khar police here as the complainant, a Delhi-based entrepreneur, mentioned that the accused was a resident of Mumbai. The National Commission of Women (NCW) had written to the Maharashtra Police about complaints it had received from several women against Murthy, a police official said.
(Source: Economic Times )
8. Indra Nooyi Appointed ICC’s First Independent Female Director
PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi has been appointed as the first independent female director of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Board.
Nooyi will join the ICC board in June 2018 to align with the term of the ICC independent chairman, following the unanimous confirmation of her appointment at meeting held on Friday, an ICC release said.
“I am thrilled to join the ICC as the first person to be appointed to this role. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the board, ICC’s partners, and cricketers around the world to grow our sport responsibly and give our fans a new reason to follow every ball and shot,” Nooyi said.
ICC Chairman, Shashank Manohar, said: “Adding another independent director —particularly a female — is such an important step forward in improving our governance. To have someone of Indra’s calibre is fantastic news for the global game.”
(Source: Livemint)
9. Is Flipkart Worth $20 Billion? Walmart Weighs Price of India Bet
Is India’s e-commerce leader Flipkart Online Services Pvt worth $20 billion?
Walmart Inc is weighing just that in negotiations to become Flipkart’s largest shareholder, according to people familiar with the matter, as the startup fends off Amazon.com Inc in what’s essentially a three-player market. China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has backed new entrant Paytm E-commerce Pvt.
The world’s biggest retailer is discussing a proposal that would give it as much as a fifth of Flipkart for a valuation as high as $20 billion, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.
Walmart kicked off the latest round of talks by offering to value the company at about $15 billion, though Flipkart is holding out for more, the people said. Discussions are at an advanced stage, though the terms could change and the deal may not be finalised, they said.
(Source: BloombergQuint)
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