COMPANIES, P5 COMPANIES, P4 BACK PAGE, P18 THIRD MARKDOWN SINCE 2023 GLOBAL ASSET-LIGHT POLICY AUSTRALIAN OPEN 2024 BlackRock slashes Byju’s valuation by 95% to under $1 bn Coca-Cola hives off select bottling operations in India Not enough credit is given to returning mothers: Sania Mirza CHENNAI/KOCHI, SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2024 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM READ TO LEAD VOL NO. XLIV 212, 18 PAGES, `12.00 P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K ATA , L U C K N O W, M U M B A I , N E W D E L H I , P U N E SENSEX: 72,568.44 ▲ 847.26 NIFTY: 21,894.55 ▲ 247.35 NIKKEI 225: 35,577.11 ▲ 527.25 HANG SENG: 16,244.58 ▼ 57.46 `/$: 82.92 ▲ 0.11 `/€: 90.91 ▲ 0.12 BRENT: $79.68 ▲ $2.27 GOLD: `62,178 ▲ `150 CPSEs MEET 75% OFANNUAL CAPEX TARGET IN APR-DEC CENTRAL PUBLIC SECTOR enterprises and other government agencies like the NHAI and the Railways have invested `5.51 trillion or 75% of their combined FY24 capex target in April-December period, reports Prasanta Sahu. ■ PAGE 2 SENSEX 36,521.70 Jan 12 5.14% 847.27 points 35,750 Previous close 34,735.25 1.18% 35,400 35,673 Close Open Top sectoral gainers 71,721.18 Jan 12 247.35 points 1.09 21,894.55 1.71 % gain Jan 11 Jan 11 jit Financial Services,said. The markets remain resilient despite mixed global cues on account of a higherthan-expectedUSinflationandpositivejobs Energy 1.14% 21,647.20 data,which tempered expectations for an imminent rate cutbythe US Fed,Nairsaid. Continued on Page 11 ● MODI INAUGURATES INDIA'S LONGEST SEA BRIDGE FE S P E C I A L S Why Darjeeling lies in West Bengal, and not Sikkim? Driving next to the toy train in new Honda City, a local takes us on a historical trip. ■ MOTOBAHN, P7 Loan cleared but status unpaid? Proof of your transaction history is vital to validate your payment status ■ PERSONAL FINANCE, P8 TATA CONSUMER PRODUCTS on Friday said that it was acquiring Mumbai-based Capital Foods, which makes the Ching’s Secret and Smith & Jones brands, for an enterprise value of `5,100 crore. The company said that it had entered into a share purchase deal and shareholders agreement to acquire the firm in an all-cash deal. Tata Consumer has also acquired Organic India from existing owner Fabindia for an enterprise value of INSIDE `1,900 crore. The company is into organic teas Jindal may top Adani’s and health foods.The deal with Organic Indiavalues bid for coal the firm at over 5 times power unit its FY24 estimates sales ■ PAGE 4 of `560-570 crore. The transaction with Capital Foods, on the other hand, values the firm at 6.5-6.8 times its FY24 sales which is estimated at `750-770 crore. Sales of Capital Foods in FY23 stood at `900 crore,which was close to double its FY22 sales of `580 crore. Earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) margins for FY23 stood at 25%, according to sector analysts tracking the firm. The two-step transaction will see Tata Consumer initially pick up a 75% stake in Capital Foods for `3,825 crore. Existing investors Invus Group, a European family office with a 40% stake and private equity firm General Atlantic with a 35% stake will 75% of equity shareholding in Capital Foods upfront, balance 25% within next three years Capital Foods markets its products under Ching’s Secret and Smith & Jones brands ■ Ching’s Secret is a market leader in Desi Chinese across its product categories ■ The overall size ■ Smith & Jones is of the categories a fast-growing in which Capital brand catering to Foods operates in in-home cooking is estimated at of Italian and other Western cuisines `21,400 cr exit the company in this round.The balance 25% in the company, held by founder Ajay Gupta, will be picked up within three years for `1,275 crore. More importantly, the deal will help Tata Consumer, best known for its tea, coffee and salt brands, to widen its portfolio to include noodles, condiments and organic products. The company will get ready access to the Indian Chinese instant noodle market,which is pegged at around `1,200 crore. Smith & Jones, on the other hand, caters to in-home cooking of Italian and otherwestern cuisines. Continued on Page 11 Retail inflation shoots up, factory activity sputters PRIYANSH VERMA New Delhi, January 12 FACTORY DESPATCHES OF passenger vehicles crossed the four-million mark in a calendar year for the first time in 2023, on the back of robust demand for utility vehicles, SIAM said on Friday. The industry is also on course to breach the four-million mark in the current financial year. ■ PAGE 4 INDIA ON FRIDAY raised the issues faced by business visitors from the country due to visa processing time in the US and again emphasised the need to increase the number of inspections by the USFDA at the 14th India-US Trade Policy Forum, reports Mukesh Jagota. ■ PAGE 2 BOLSTERING PORTFOLIO ■ Tatas to acquire PASSENGER VEHICLE SALES TOPS 4-MN MARK IN 2023 INDIA RAISES VISA, PHARMAAUDIT ISSUES WITH US Buy Organic India for `1,900 crore VIVEAT SUSAN PINTO Mumbai, January 12 36,100 72,568.45 NIFTY In `5,100-cr deal,Tatas acquire Capital Foods 36,450 Oil & gas IN AN UPSWING fueled by the IT sector, the Sensex and Nifty on Friday soared to their fresh record highs. The Sensex achieved an intraday high of 72,720.96 before settling at 72,568.45, a gain of 847.27 points or 1.18%. The Nifty50 reached a newall-time high of 21,928.25, settling at 21,894.55, a rise of 247.35 points or 1.14%. IT stocks spearheaded the rally with the top five Sensex gainers originating from the industry.Infosys andTCS played a key role, accounting for 59% or 497 points of the Sensex's 847 points gain. Infosyswitnessed a substantial 7.84% jump to `1,612.20,marking its most significant single-day gain in the last three years. This surge followed the company's robust deal wins and better-thanexpected revenues in the Decemberquarter,said analysts. Tech Mahindra witnessed a gain of 4.73%, while TCS, Wipro and HCL Tech rose nearly 4% each. The BSE IT Index reached a two-year high,withFriday's5.06%increasemarking themostsignificantsurgesinceMay2020. “Indianmarketssoaredtonewhighsin a rally driven by IT heavyweights. Green shoots of recovery in the IT sector on the back of an improved outlook for BFSI in FY25 positively influenced market sentiments,”Vinod Nair,headof Research,Geo- Intra-day 36,800 1.93 SEBI ON FRIDAY tweaked the framework for onboarding investors by AIFs, reports PTI. When onboarding investors, the AIF manager must ensure that the investor or its beneficial owner is not listed in the sanctions list by the United Nations Security Council. ■ PAGE 8 NIFTY IT HIGH-TECH RALLY Realty SEBI TWEAKS RULE FOR ONBOARDING INVESTORS IN AIFs KISHOR KADAM Mumbai, January 12 4.40 THE CENTRE’S FISCAL deficit may end up a tad lower at 5.8% than the budget estimate of 5.9% for FY24 due to buoyant revenues and the target may be pegged around 5.3% for FY25, Goldman Sachs said on Friday, reports Prasanta Sahu. Goldman Sachs has projected that the government borrowing in FY25 to remain elevated. ■ PAGE 3 Markets ride IT wave TECK GOVT MAY MEET 5.8% FISCAL DEFICIT TARGET: GOLDMAN 5.06 NEWS SENSEX, NIFTY HIT FRESH HIGHS IT IN THE Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sewri-Nhava Sheva Atal Setu, the country's longest bridge and also the longest sea bridge, on Friday ■ REPORT ON PAGE 3 PTI RESULTS CORNER HCLTech bucks industry trend, posts 13.5% jump in Q3 profit BUCKING THE INDUSTRY trend of a weak Q3 performance, HCLTech on Friday reported a 13.5% sequential rise in net profit to `4,350 crore, while its revenue rose 6.7% to `28,446 crore, reports Ayanti Bera. The company beat Bloomberg consensus estimates on both the fronts, pegged at `4,124 crore and 28,075 crore. However, the country’s third-largest IT company trimmed the upper end of its FY24 revenue guidance to 5-5.5% from 5-6%. ■ PAGE 4 Wipro reports 1.8% rise in profit, in line with Street estimates WIPRO ON FRIDAY reported a 1.8% sequential growth in its consolidated net profit to `2,694 crore for the OctoberDecember quarter, reports Sameer Ranjan Bakshi. The number was in line with Bloomberg consensus estimates of `2,669 crore. Consolidated revenue came in at `22,205 crore, down 1.4% q-o-q and above Bloomberg estimates of `22,094 crore. Wipro adjusted its revenue growth guidance for Q4 at both the lower and upper end. It has now guided for a revenue growth of -1.5% to 0.5%. ■ PAGE 4 RETAIL INFLATION BASED on consumer price index (CPI) rose to a four-month high of 5.69% in December,while industrial output growth as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) slowed to an eight-month low of 2.4% in November. Retail inflation jumped from 5.55% in November due to the statistical effect of a low base, data released by the National Statistical Office showed on Friday.The December print was, however, lower than market expectation of 5.9%. Sequentially, the overall index fell 0.3% in December, the steepest pace in four months. The month-on-month decline in the consumer food price index (CFPI) was also the steepest in four months at 0.9%, but the inflation rate in December was at 9.53%, at a four-month high, purely due to a low base. With the December print,CPI inflation in Q3FY24 averaged 5.4%,20 basis points (bps) lower than the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI's) projection for the quarter. If the headline inflation averages 5.2% in Q4FY24, as per the forecast, CPI inflation in the entire FY24 would average 5.4%, in line with the RBI’s projection. Core inflation stayed on its declining trajectoryin December,coming in at 3.9% – the lowest rate in 48 months.This has,however, perplexed some economists. “Declining core inflation at a time of DOUBLE TROUBLE 12 (% change, y-o-y) 10 8 6 9.53 4.7 5.2 5.69 4 2 0 CPI CPI core CPI food 3.84 84 April 2023 Dec 2023 IIP (% change, y-o-y) 4.6 Apr 5.7 4.0 May Jun Source: Moci, Mospi 3.9 3.9 11.6 10.9 6.2 6.2 2.4 Jul Aug 2023 Sep Oct Nov INSIDE Food inflation soars to 9.53% PAGE 2 strong economic growth is a conundrum,” said India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) in a note.In the first nine months of FY24,core inflation has averaged 4.6%, significantly lower than 6.1% in FY23. Continued on Page 11 GOOGLE MAY ROLL OUT A NEW SERVICE FEE MODEL More real-money games to feature on Play Store from June JATIN GROVER New Delhi, January 12 GOOGLE'S MOVE TO relax its Play Store policies to allow more realmoney games on its app marketplacewillthrowopenthemarketfor gamingcompanies.BeginningJune, the tech giant will onboard other categories of real-money games, other than fantasy and rummy. The development will benefit real-moneygaming companies like WinZo, MPL, among others, who will now be able to host pay-to-play skill games such as poker,chess,etc, on Play Store, and get direct access to a large Android user base. Till now, real-money gaming companies such as Dream11, Games 24x7, among others, had access to Play Store because their games were in the category of fan- LEVELLING UP ■ New service fee model to reflect the value gaming companies will get from Play Store ■ Companies like WinZo and MPL can now host other payto-play skill games such as poker, chess, etc Till now, Dream11, Games 24x7, others were large beneficiaries given they had fantasy and rummy games ■ ■ Google charges 15-30% service fee on in-app purchases and subscriptions ■ If developers choose alternative billing system, they will have to pay 11-26% to Google tasy and rummy, industry executives said. Google had started a pilot programme in September 2022 in India for gaming companies to distribute daily fantasy sports (DFS) and rummy apps to their users via PlayStore forayear.Lastyear,it had extended the pilot to January 15, which has now been further extended till June 30,when the new policywill come into effect. Google is also considering a new service fee model for real-money games. It charges 15-30% service fee on in-app purchases and subscriptions.If the developers choose an alternative billing system, they have to pay 11-26% to Google. Continued on Page 11 Dream11 onboards 55 mn in ’23 FANTASY GAMING COMPANY the users are from 115 tier-1 and Dream11 onboarded 55 million tier-2 cities,according tothe data newuserslastyear,takingitstotal shared by Jain on LinkedIn. registered users to 210 Jain said Dream11 million, CEO and corecorded 1.5 billion UPI founder Harsh Jain said transactions during last on Friday.The user addiyear. It also witnessed a tion in 2023 was higher 79% year-on-year than 20 million in 2022. growth in female users Key factors behind on the platform.Further, the growth of user addithe real-money gaming tionscanbeattributedto platform witnessed crethe Cricket World Cup as HARSH JAIN, ation of 10 billion fanwell as the Indian Pre- founder & CEO, tasy sports team. mierLeague,accordingto Dream11 In FY22, Dream11’s industryexecutives. revenue from operations Majority of the new users roseover50%to`3,841croreand added are in the age bracket of net profit fell 57% to `142 crore. 25-60 years and around 28% of — FE BUREAU CHENNAI/KOCHI