ECONOMY, P2 COMPANIES, P4 INTERNATIONAL, P12 Join India’s growth story: PM to German biz forum AI helps q-comm firms make quick deliveries Musk adds $34 billion to his wealth in a day CHENNAI/KOCHI, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2024 FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM READ TO LEAD VOL NO. XLV 147, 30 PAGES, `12.00 P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K ATA , L U C K N O W, M U M B A I , N E W D E L H I , P U N E SENSEX: 79,402.29 ▼ 662.87 NIFTY: 24,180.80 ▼ 218.60 NIKKEI 225: 37,913.92 ▼ 229.37 HANG SENG: 20,590.15 ▲ 100.53 `/$: 84.08 ▼ 0.01 `/€: 91.01 ▼ 0.23 BRENT: $75.47 ▲ $1.09 GOLD: `77,622 ▼ `375 Fall season: `37 lakh cr lost KENYA'S HIGH COURT on Friday suspended a $736-million deal between a state utility and Adani Energy Solutions to build and operate power infrastructure including transmission lines, reports Reuters. An agreement on this was signed earlier this month. ■ PAGE 5 SPICEJET SETTLES 4 DISPUTES IN JUST OVER A MONTH SPICEJET ON FRIDAY said it has settled a $4.5-million dispute with Shannon Engine Support for an aggregate sum of $2 million. This is the fourth such settlement in just over a month, reports Raghav Aggarwal. ■ PAGE 4 Oct 04 Oct 11 `40.9 lakh cr 430 `21.2 lakh cr market cap loss in this week 410 lakh crore ($5.2 trillion). The persistent selling saw the Sensex close below the 80,000point mark for the first time in over two months. The 30-stock index fell 0.8% to 79,402.29 points onFriday,andtheNiftyclosed0.9% 462 Oct 10 Sep 27 437 Oct 25 lower at 24,180.80. “The correction was overdue because the fundamentals are not supporting.TheApril-Juneearnings were mixed. Now, the September quarter has also not (been) great so far,”saidAmbareeshBaliga,aninde- pendent market analyst. Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have led the sell-off bydumping stocks worth $9.5 billion (`79,363 crore) so far in October. Continued on Page 7 IndiGo dives into loss after 2 years SWARAJ BAGGONKAR Mumbai, October 25 INDIGO PARENT INTERGLOBE Aviation on Friday reported a surprise loss of `987 crore at the consolidated level for the September quarter, weighed down by fuel expenses and growing aircraft rentals. This was the company’s first quarterly loss in two years. The country’s biggest airline, controlling 63% of the domestic passenger traffic, had reported a net profit of `189 crore for the REPORT CARD PIETER ELBERS, CEO, INDIGO InterGlobe Aviation consolidated financials Q2FY24 Q2FY25 (` cr) % chg y-o-y Revenue Ebitda Net profit 14,944 16,970 13.6 25.9 2,200 1,631 189 -987 WE HAVE NOW TURNED THE CORNER (ON AIRCRAFT GROUNDINGS) Ebitda margin (%) 9.6 same quarter last year. A Bloomberg estimate had pegged the Q2FY25 net profit at `134 crore. 14.7 Fuel expenses, which made up over one-third of IndiGo’s total expenses, rose 13% year-onyear (y-o-y). Supplementary rentals and aircraft repair and maintenance costs, which contributed 15%, increased 30%. Consolidated revenue from operations grew by 14% y-o-y to `16,970 crore, but was lower than the `17,254 crore estimated by Bloomberg. Continued on Page 7 ■ JSW Steel’s PAT REVELATIONS FROM TATA'S BIOGRAPHY Mistry’s British education blinded me: Ratan Tata IVINDER GILL New Delhi, October 25 -5.2 450 477.9 -3.2 470 All-time high Oct 25 -4.5 -4.4 490 -2.0 market cap erosion from record high Oct 18 -2.2 -2.7 25 BSE Smallcap -0.2 -0.4 -1.0 -0.2 24 BSE Midcap -0.4 -0.2 23 Nifty Sensex 1.1 1.2 (in ` lakh crore) 22 -6,80,383 AFTER GAINING OVER `87 lakh crore in thefirsthalf ofthe financial year, stock market investors have seen their wealth erode by 43% or `37 lakh crore in October — the worst in a single month. Before this, the worst-ever monthly market cap loss was in March 2020, when the panic over the Covid pandemic saw investors lose as much as `33.4 lakh crore. The Sensex and the Nifty have fallen 5.8% and 6.3%,respectively, this month,while the broader marketindiceshaveseenasharpercutof up to 9%. At the end of Friday, the market capitalisation of BSE-listedcompaniesstoodat`437 Oct 21 BSE total market cap -7.4 KENYAN COURT SUSPENDS $736-MN ADANI POWER DEAL VIVEK KUMAR M Mumbai, October 25 Weekly returns (in %) Market cap gain/loss (in ` crore) -1,51,921 THE EUROPEAN UNION'S insistence on preferential market access to India's $132-billion dairy sector could derail progress on its proposed FTA with India, commerce & industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday, reports Mukesh Jagota. ■ PAGE 2 IN THE RED 62,302 NO FTA IF EU INSISTS Sensex sinks 5.8%, ON ADDING DAIRY SECTOR: GOYAL Nifty down 6.3% -8,96,100 NEWS OCTOBER WEALTH EROSION WORST IN A MONTH -4,50,346 IN THE plunges 85%, P4 ■ BoB profit up 23%, P6 `2 crore,an unprecedented sum for a non-fiction work, in 2022. The author, Thomas Mathew, is “CYRUS MISTRY’S BRITISH a retired bureaucrat who serves education blinded me. I naively on the board of several large thought that the DNAof a person Indian companies. with such an impressive educaThe book describes how Mistion would be different,” com- try’s appointment was ‘circummented Ratan Tata on why he stantial’, and he was selected chose Mistry to head the Tata when the selection panel failed empire. He also to zero in on a suitregretted issuing an able candidate, and ultimatum to the upon examining a committee selecting paper put forth by his successor that he Mistry on ‘key suc“would walk out on cess factors in manDecember 28, 2012”, aging the Tata which, he said, put Group’, ended up avoidablepressureon interviewing and the committee, and choosing him for the was the chief reason chairman’s post. forthe panelto“act in However, things haste”, resulting in started unravelling Mistry’s selection. fast, and the book EXCLUSIVE Ratan Tata also EXCERPTS ON reveals how Ratan regretted staying Tatawas uneasywith ■ PAGE 23 away from the Mistry’s decisions as selection process, chairman that he felt admitting his approach compromised the Group’s clean to the selection had been image and reputation for fair ‘very idealistic’. play.The book describes in detail These revelations, and more, how there were apprehensions are part of industrialist Ratan when Mistry steered the Group Tata’s biography, Ratan Tata: A into businesses outside its core Life, by Thomas Mathew, areas, such as infrastructure, released by HarperCollins India where “bribes and corruption” on Friday. could cause problems for the The authorised biography Tata name. was reportedly acquired by HarperCollins for a record Continued on Page 7 CHENNAI/KOCHI