News digest: Benami properties, global funds, motorcycles sales, and more

1. Benami properties of Rs 43 bn attached; Jaipur and Mumbai top the list

The income-tax (I-T) department has attached over 1,500 unaccounted properties worth Rs 43 billion across the country within one and a half years of the introduction of the revised benami legislation. Jaipur and Mumbai top the list, with attachments of 200 properties each.

Patna has seen the least number of attachments at 30, followed by Lucknow at 50, while in Kolkata, Chandigarh, and Hyderabad, 144, 110, and 100 properties got attached, respectively, says a finance ministry official. “The I-T department has worked swiftly in identifying benami transactions since the enactment of the revised legislation. Over 1,500 properties have been attached so far. Many are on the radar. Search and surveys are on involving gold dealers, bankers, hawala operators, senior government officials, and politicians, etc,” said another official. Read more...

2. Malvinder Singh's contract under Fortis Healthcare board scanner

Fortis Healthcare board, which met on Monday to approve its fourth quarter and financial year results, may soon take a call on the employment contract of erstwhile promoter and executive chairman Malvinder Singh. 

Sources claimed that the newly-constituted board may be discontinuing the employment of Singh, who after resigning as a director, continues as lead, strategic initiatives, of Fortis Healthcare. An email sent to Fortis did not elicit any response. 

Malvinder, who along with brother Shivinder resigned from the Fortis board in February, was appointed at the strategic initiatives for a period of five years with effect from October 2016 at a remuneration of Rs 120 million per year. Read more...

3. Motorcycles outpace scooters after 8 years; sales grow at 22% in 2018

Motorcycles are back in action, taking away some of the limelight that scooters had been hogging for several years. Scooters, after having grown at a faster pace to motorcycles for eight consecutive years, are lagging behind in growth. The data for the first five months of the 2018 calendar year shows motorcycle sales have grown at over 22 per cent, compared to a growth of about 15 per cent in scooters. 

In India, the world’s biggest two-wheeler market, motorcycle sales grew at 6.44 per cent in 2017, less than half, compared to the 14 per cent growth in scooters. The last time motorcycles managed to grow faster than scooters was in 2009. Read more...

4. Global funds' India bullishness dips to lowest in five years

Gone are the days when India attracted more than its fair share of foreign flows. Global funds’ India preference has dropped to the lowest since 2013 amid a deteriorating macro environment, with weakening of the rupee and surging crude oil prices. 

Currently, the consensus ‘overweight’ on India vis-à-vis its weight in the influential MSCI Emerging Market (EM) index is around 100 basis points (bps), down from 800 bps in 2015. Even at the time of taper tantrum in 2013 when foreign investors were shunning EMs, funds were overweight 300 bps on India. Read more...

5. India needs $4.5 trillion infra spending over next decade: FM Piyush Goyal

India would need $4.5 trillion for investment in infrastructure over the next decade, the cost of which could be a challenge, but raising the resources is not an issue, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday. He was speaking at the third annual meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

According to the Finance Minister, the cost of financing in a rising interest rate environment is an “important challenge”, but multilateral agencies and other funds are eager to invest in India. “Getting finance is not a challenge for India,” Goyal said. Read more...