Page 46 - Companies

DLF's net debt falls 92% to record low Rs 57 cr at end of June quarter

Realty firm DLF's net debt has come down by 92 per cent to Rs 57 crore -- the lowest level -- at the end of the first quarter of this fiscal on better cash flow driven by strong housing sales. According to an investors' presentation, DLF's net debt stood at Rs 57 crore as on June 30, 2023 as compare to Rs 721 crore at the end of 2022-23 fiscal. During the period under review, the company's gross debt also fell to Rs 3,068 crore from Rs 3,840 crore. "We continue to focus on strengthening our balance sheet and cash generation. Strong collections led to a further reduction in net debt during the quarter. Consequently, our net debt now stands reduced to the lowest ever at Rs 57 crore," DLF's Group Chief Financial Officer Vivek Anand told investors. As per the transcript of the investors' call, Anand said, "With these low levels of debt, we have almost achieved our commitment of being net zero and hopefully should end the year with a surplus cash position." Recently, DLF reported a 12 p

JK Tyre & Industries profit rises over 4-fold to Rs 159 cr in June quarter

JK Tyre & Industries on Friday reported an over four-fold rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 158.59 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2023. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 35.13 crore for the same period of the last fiscal, JK Tyre & Industries said in a regulatory filing. Revenue from operations was at Rs 3,718.08 crore as compared to Rs 3,643.03 crore in the year-ago quarter, it added. Total expenses were lower at Rs 3,489.01 crore as against Rs 3,557.97 crore in the same period a year ago. "The financial year 2024 has started on a positive note, in terms of better profitability as a result of our continued focus on premiumisation of the product mix, indeed aided by stable input costs," JK Tyre & Industries Chairman and Managing Director Raghupati Singhania said. He further said, "We are witnessing buoyancy in demand in the replacement and OEM segments across product categories, driven by a healthy macro-economic environment. Export ...

Applied Materials to bring its global suppliers to set operations in India

India is a key market for US-based Applied Materials where the firm plans to invest $400 million over coming years in a new engineering centre in the tech hub of Bengaluru

Meta's AudioCraft will allow users to generate music from text

AudrioCraft is a new generative AI tool unveiled by Meta that can generate audio and music from text prompts

India may restrict e-commerce websites from selling private labels

The move is expected to have a significant impact on companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance and Tata, which have a large number of private labels

Fintech firm Paytm's average monthly users increase by 19% to 9.3 crore

Fintech company Paytm on Thursday said its average monthly users rose by 19 per cent on-year to 9.3 crore. Merchant subscriptions stood at 82 lakhs, with 41 lakh new subscriptions over the year, according to the filing. Sequentially, the company saw merchant subscriptions increase by about 4 lakh in July 2023, Paytm said in a filing. Payment volumes for merchants or Gross Merchandise Values (GMV) rose 39 per cent on-year at Rs 1.47 lakh crore. "We continue to see increase in GMV of non-UPI instruments like EMI and cards. We are focused on payment volumes that generate profitability for us, either through net payments margin or from direct upsell potential," the company said. The fintech platform said it doled out 43 lakh loans in the month of July, making the total value of loans distributed in the month to Rs 5194 crore, at a whopping yearly growth of 148 per cent. The company will discontinue monthly disclosures of operating metrics starting September 2023, since their business

Torrent enters e-mobility infra space; sets 4 charging stations in Gujarat

Torrent Power on Thursday said it has forayed into the electric mobility infrastructure segment with four charging stations in Gujarat. The first set of charging stations have been installed in Ahmedabad, Torrent Power said in a statement on Thursday. "Torrent Power has forayed into the electric mobility infrastructure sector. Initially a set of four EV (electric vehicle) charging stations have been set up in Ahmedabad, while two more will be launched in Surat soon," it said. More cities will be added to the list in the near future, the company said. Torrent Power Director Varun Mehta said the company is working towards an affordable EV charging network on a wide scale. The company has collaborated with Siemens for developing the EV charging network.

Dunzo seller app joins ONDC; aims to onboard 20,000 merchants in 45 days

Quick commerce and logistics app Dunzo's seller arm has joined the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and is looking to onboard over 20,000 merchants across verticals in the next 45 days, the company said on Thursday. The seller app, which joined the ONDC less than two weeks ago, is already witnessing high volumes, according to a senior executive. In addition to being a logistics partner on the network, the seller app will onboard 1,500 local merchants in the next one week. It is targeting to have 20,000 local merchants across food, grocery, pharma among other sectors in the next 45 days. Dunzo Co-Founder Dalvir Suri said since the onboarding on the ONDC, there has been a three-time increase in the number of daily orders for merchants. "It's been less than two weeks since we've been live on the network, and have already hit peak order volumes of more than 3,000 a day for groceries and other essential items through our local merchants," he said. Dunzo had joined the ONDC abo

Radico Khaitan's profit rises by 10% to Rs 68 crore in Apr-June quarter

Liquor maker Radico Khaitan on Thursday reported a 10.11 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit to Rs 68.26 crore for the June quarter, aided by premiumisation and easing raw material prices. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 61.99 crore in the April-June period a year ago, Radico Khaitan said in a BSE filing. Its revenue from operations rose 26.36 per cent to Rs 4,023.31 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal as against Rs 3,183.80 crore in the year-ago period. During the quarter, "total IMFL (Indian-made foreign liquor) volume was 7.36 million cases, up 7.9 per cent", said an earning statement from Radico Khaitan. Radico Khaitan's total expenses were up 26.66 per cent to Rs 3,940.41 crore during the quarter. The total revenue of Radico Khaitan, which owns brands like Jaisalmer, Magic Moments, Morpheus Brandy and Rampur Indian Single Malt, was at Rs 4,024.43 crore, up 26.23 per cent versus a year ago. Radico Khaitan Managing Director Abhi

Karnataka Bank announces net profit of Rs 370.70 crore for June quarter

Karnataka Bank has posted a net profit of Rs 370.70 crore during the first quarter of the current financial year as against Rs 114.18 crore recorded during the corresponding quarter of the previous year, with a year-on-year (YoY) growth rate of 224.66 per cent. A meeting of the board of directors of the bank held here on Thursday approved the financial results for the quarter that ended June 30, 2023, a press release here said citing the figures. The operating profit of the bank stood at Rs 601.17 crore and net interest income stood at Rs 814.68 crore during the quarter ended June 30. The business turnover of the bank was at Rs 1,48,449.27 crore as on June 30, 2023, compared to Rs 1,38,936.17 crore in the previous year, registering a YoY growth of 6.85 per cent. The deposits of the bank stood at Rs 86,959.86 crore with a YoY growth of 7.92 per cent and advances at Rs 61,489.41 crore with a YoY growth of 5.36 per cent. The gross NPAs declined to 3.68 per cent, compared to 4.03 per c

Go First can't fly lessors' aircraft as of now, rules Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court Thursday said scheduled maintenance cannot be understood to include flying of aircraft and restrained crisis-hit Go First airline to continue with maintenance flights. The high court said the resolution professional (RP) appointed under the insolvency law to manage the airline has not been able to show any urgency or any grave imminent threat to the aircraft compelling the RP to fly them suddenly and without any prior notice. Justice Tara Vitasta Ganju, who had on July 28 directed that status quo be maintained in respect of handling/non-revenue flights of the petitioner lessors' aircraft till August 3, extended the interim order till further orders. The high court termed as misconceived the contention of the RP that 2 of the 10 aircraft have been flown by Go Airlines as these were handling flights forming part of the scheduled maintenance activity for an aircraft. The respondent no.9/ RP of Go Airlines has also not been able to show any urgency or any grave ...

Broad level of consensus among stakeholders on proposed ecommerce policy

A broad level of consensus has emerged among the concerned stakeholders on the proposed national e-commerce policy, which is under formulation, a senior government official said on Thursday. The commerce and industry ministry on August 2 held a detailed discussion with representatives of e-commerce firms and domestic traders body CAIT on issues related to the sector including the policy for the segment. "There is a broad level of consensus. We will tell you more, may be in a couple of weeks. Policy is in final stages. There is a level of consensus across all stakeholders," the official said. Both the policy and the rules will be aligned to each other, the official added. Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal, who attended the meeting, has said it was indicated that the national e-commerce policy would be released by the government in the coming months. "A unanimity was arrived at between all stakeholders about basic pillars of e-commerce po

Pinnacle Infotech to expand workforce four-fold to 12,000 in 6 years

Pinnacle Infotech Solutions, an Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) IT solutions industry player, on Thursday said it will expand its workforce four-fold to 12,000 in six years, driven by the growing demand amid the threat of a slowdown in the developed markets. The Durgapur-based building information modelling (BIM) solutions firm, which is also involved in the new temple in Ayodhya, currently has 3,000 employees. The company has 12 state-of-the-art global delivery centres across the world. Its global delivery centres are located in the USA, Japan, India, Singapore, UK, UAE, Germany, and Canada. The international delivery centres in India are in Durgapur, Kolkata, Madurai, and Jaipur. "The AEC industry is undergoing a digital transformation, and BIM is at the forefront of this transformation. We are seeing strong demand for our BIM solutions from clients around the world and we don't foresee any slowdown threat. The expansion of our global workforce will help us meet .

Apollo's second-quarter earnings surge 75% on upbeat annuities business

Adjusted net income rose to $1 billion, up from $576 million a year earlier. That translated to an adjusted net income per share of $1.70, which exceeded the average analyst forecast

Zydus Lifesciences gets USFDA nod for generic rheumatoid arthritis drug

Zydus Lifesciences Ltd on Thursday said it has received final approval from the US health regulator to manufacture and market its generic Indomethacin suppositories indicated for moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. The approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) is for manufacturing and marketing of Indomethacin suppositories of 50mg strength, the company said in a regulatory filing. The company has been granted 180-day CGT (competitive generic therapy) exclusivity to market this product, it added. As per the USFDA, it may designate a drug as a CGT after determining that there is inadequate generic competition for that drug. "We are happy to leverage the CGT approval pathway of the USFDA to provide patients with expanded access to a product with limited competition," Zydus Lifesciences Managing Director Dr Sharvil Patel said. Zydus said Indomethacin suppositories is a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug indicated for moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis inclu

Blue Star Q1 profit rises over 12% on robust sales, revenue up 12.6%

BENGALURU (Reuters) - Indian air conditioner maker Blue Star on Thursday reported an over-12% rise in first-quarter profit, as a warmer summer led to a rise in sale of air conditioners

MRF Q1FY24 results: Consolidated net profit jumps 376% YoY to Rs 588 crore

The revenue from operations for Q1FY24 came in at Rs 6,440.29 crore, compared to Rs 5,695.93 crore year-on-year

Dunzo fully integrates seller app onto ONDC, will onboard 20k merchants

Quick commerce firm will provide merchants customer and last-mile logistics delivery support for joining network

Varun Beverages Q2 results: Net profit rises 26.2% YoY, revenue up 13.5%

The company's revenue from operations was up 13.5 per cent to Rs 56,997.34 crore from Rs 50,175.75 crore in the June quarter last year

PC Jeweller faces insolvency plea by SBI, NCLT adjourns hearing till Aug 21

Public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) has taken PC Jeweller to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) with a plea to initiate insolvency proceedings against the city-based jewellery manufacturer and retailer claiming a default. A Delhi-based principal bench of NCLT had issued a notice to PC Jeweller last week directing it to file a reply over the plea filed by its financial creditor SBI under section 7 of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code. The principal bench headed by its President Justice Ramlingam Sudhakar had directed the matter to be listed as SBI's plea on August 2 for further consideration. However, when the matter was adjourned on Wednesday the counsel appearing for PC Jeweller sought more time to file a reply over the notice issued over SBI's plea. Following this, the insolvency tribunal has directed to list the matter on August 21 for the next hearing. PC Jeweller has been engaged in the business of trade, manufacturing and sale of gold, diamond, silver, ...