COMPANIES, P5 BACK PAGE, P14 INTERNATIONAL, P3 LEAKED ON DARK WEB PEAK TRAVEL SEASON $65-BN INVESTMENT boAt hit by data breach, loses personal data of 7.5 million customers Vistara’s scale-down pushes airfares up 25% on key routes TSMC gets $11.6 bn in US grants, loans for three chip factories BENGALURU, TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2024 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM READ TO LEAD VOL NO. XXXVI 306, 14 PAGES, `12.00 P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K ATA , L U C K N O W, M U M B A I , N E W D E L H I , P U N E SENSEX: 74,742.50 ▲ 494.28 NIFTY: 22,666.30 ▲ 152.60 NIKKEI 225: 39,347.04 ▲ 354.96 HANG SENG: 16,732.85 ▲ 8.93 `/$: 83.32 ▼ 0.02 `/€: 90.21 ▲ 0.06 BRENT: $90.86 ▼ $0.31 GOLD: `71,011 ▲ `1,291 IN THE NEWS PEGATRON IN TALKS WITH TATATO SELL IPHONE PLANT TAIWANESE FIRM PEGATRON is in advanced talks to hand over control of its only iPhone manufacturing facility in India to Tata group, reports Reuters. ■ PAGE 5 BAIN CAPITALTO SELL $429-MILLION STAKE IN AXIS BANK BAIN CAPITAL PLANS to sell stake worth $429 million in private lender Axis Bank on Tuesday, reports Reuters. The private equity firm will exit its entire holding with this stake sale. ■ PAGE 6 GO FIRST: NCLT EXTENDS DEADLINE BY 60 MORE DAYS THE NATIONAL COMPANY Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday extended the timeline for Go First’s corporate insolvency resolution process by another 60 days. ■ PAGE 5 EXPLAINER Will the pause on new highway toll rates hit collections? ■ PAGE 9 NET PROFITS EXPECTED TO RISE 4-5% Dull season for India Inc FE BUREAU Mumbai, April 8 SECTOR SCORE % y-o-y Sales growth Mar ‘23 % q-o-q Mar ‘24E Ebitda growth Ebitda margin PAT growth HEADLINE PROFITGROWTH is expected tobemutedintheMarchquarterearnings season.While automobile manufacturers, banks, and pharmaceuticals are expected todowell,itmaybe offsetbymodestnumbers from the metals & mining pack. A weak discretionary spending environment, together with the spillover of furloughsfromtheDecemberquarter,will mean sluggish revenues from IT majors. Consumer demand remains by and large subdued except for premium products. Automakers have reported robust growthinvolumesandhavealsomanaged to earn better prices. Banks will have gained from lower provisioning as asset quality remains good. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will kick off the results season on April 12. Net profits for the Nifty 50 set of companies are estimated to rise by about 4% year-on-year and 6.6% quarter-on-quarter,according to Kotak Institutional Equities (KIE). For the BSE 30 companies, net profits in Q4FY24 are expected to go up by 5% y-o-y and 8% q-o-q. Revenues for most auto producers are tipped to rise by14-15% y-o-y.This could be driven by strong volumes growth of Indices climb to fresh lifetime highs Inflation may cross Startup layoffs dip MPC forecast for Q1 60% during Jan-Mar EQUITIES HAD YET another stellar session on Monday with benchmark indices and several sectoral indices hitting fresh lifetime high levels,reports Vivek Kumar M. Sensex and Nifty gained 0.7% each to endthesessionatarecordhighclosinglevels of 74742.50 points and 22666.30 points, respectively.The gains helped the market capitalisation of BSE-listed firms top`400trillionforthefirsttime. ■ Page 6 MANY ECONOMISTS HAVE revisedtheirprojectionsforCPI inflationupwardforQ1FY25to 10-30 basis points higher than theRBI’sinflationforecastof4.9%,report Priyansh Verma & Sandip Das. Food inflationisseenposingathreatintheneartermastheforecastof“abovenormal”temperature and heatwaves inApril-June may causepricesofpulses,fruits,andvegetables and milk to spike further. ■ Page 2 Auto & components 7 3 Consumer staples IT Services Metals & mining 15 38 12.5 15 27.7 27.3 1 2 1 0 15 9 -6 1 1 0 2 -4 6 40 23 22.8 0 1 -5 1 12.4 12.4 -23 6 Source: Companies, Kotak Institutional Equities estimates Q4 RESULTS PREVIEW NIFTY50 PAT GROWTH 3.8% 6.6% % y-o-y % q-o-q about 25% y-o-y in the two-wheeler segment and in high single digits in the passengervehicle space. Continued on Page 5 INDIANTECH STARTUPS have laid off over 2,000 employees in the first quarter of the current calendar year, as per data from layoffs.fyi,reports AyantiBera.This is, however, over 60% lower than the layoffsduringthesameperiodlastyear,when venture capital was starting to dry up in a “funding winter”. In the first quarter of 2023, 43 companies had laid off more than 5,358 employees. ■ Page 4 CEO salaries surge 40% in four years Average compensation at `13.8 cr; junior execs’ pay rises at half the rate PAY HIKE 4-year CAGR 2020 2024 Median CEO compensation with long-term incentives (` cr) AKANKSHA NAGAR New Delhi, April 8 THE TOP DECK of India Inc has reason to cheer. The average compensation of a chief executiveofficer(CEO)hasrisento`13.8crore ayearin 2024 — up 40% comparedwith prepandemiclevelsin2020—accordingtoasurvey by audit and consulting firm Deloitte. In contrast, the average salary of junior executivesisestimatedtohavegrownatabout half that rate over the same period. In the CEO bracket,promoterCEO salaries are growing faster than those of professional CEOs. For instance, CEOs who are also promoters or from the promoter family are paid `16.7 crore on an average,while professional CEOs receive an average pay of `13 crore. The number of CEOs earning `20 crore or more has doubled over the past four years according to the survey, which has a base of 400 listed and unlisted firms across sectors. The proportion of promoterCEOs earning morethan`20croreayeartripledfrom9%in 2020 to 26% in 2024, while that of professional CEOs in the same bracket, increased from 12% in 2020 to 17% in 2024. “The average tenure of a promoter CEO is much longer than that of a professional CEO, sothereislessriskofattrition.Therefore,their compensationhasincreasedmoresharplyover time,”DinkarPawan,director,Deloitte said. Among BSE 200 companies (excluding PSUs),thesurveyfoundthat45%witnesseda CEO change over the past five years. Six of every 10 new CEOs are homegrown, or inter- 8% 6.9 6% 19% 9.3 CEO* 6 11.9 Promoter CEOs 7.1 Average CEO compensation with long-term incentives (` cr) 9% 9.8 14% 13.8 CEO* 10 8% 16.7 Promoter CEOs *(promoter + professional) 9.7 Source: 2024 Executive Performance & Rewards Survey Report nally appointed.The rest were external hires. While CEO compensation has increased, more than 50% of target compensation is pay-at-risk (performance-based). For professional CEOs, pay-at-risk at 57% is much higher than that for promoter CEOs at 47%. 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