Business News at 05:30 pm on 25th June, 2024

Let’s begin with the major update, After a moderate sales growth in the first quarter of 2024, infotech hubs of Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru are seeing decline or even flat growth in residential property sales during the current quarter. While Hyderabad and Pune have seen the highest decline among the top cities at 20% and 15%, respectively, sales remained flat in Bengaluru, according to data by PropEquity. In the January-March quarter, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune saw growth of 6%, 18% and 1%, respectively. Samir Jasuja, CEO & MD, PropEquity, attributed the fall to election, huge amount of launches in previous quarters and a sluggish Q2. Some experts believe that there could be other factors at play too. Moving on, The National Deep Tech Start-up Policy (NDTSP), aimed at giving a boost to early-stage technologies and their commercialisation, would go to the cabinet soon for approval, a senior official said, adding that the final draft of the policy is ready. The draft has been approved after the meeting with the Empowered Technology Group (ETG) which is headed by the Principal Scientific Advisor to the government of India earlier this month. ETG which was set up in 2020 to lay down, coordinate and oversee procurement and induction of technologies, research and development in technologies that require large outlays and advise on government’s technology development programmes. The policy could be announced in the coming Union Budget. In other news, Shares of holding companies skyrocketed as much as 20% on Monday on hopes that the historical valuation gap between their book value and market price may narrow going ahead amid the market regulator’s move to hold special call-auction mechanism for such stocks. the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), in a circular last week, said that it has been decided to put in place a framework for special call auction with no price bands for effective price discovery of scrips of Investment Companies and Investment Holding Companies. Among big names, shares of Bajaj Holdings, JSW Holdings, Bombay Burmah Trading, Kalyani Investment, and Pilani Investment soared 6-20% on the BSE on Monday. Meanwhile, Technology investor Prosus in a post-earnings call on Monday, declined to reveal whether it plans to sell a part of its 32.6% stake in food tech unicorn Swiggy’s $1.2-billion initial public offering (IPO). Prosus’ large shareholding in the food tech firm means that it is likely to be tagged as a promoter and would be put under several restrictions with regards to how and when it sells its shares once the company gets listed on the exchanges. Under the minimum promoter contribution norms of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), promoters of IPO-bound companies have to contribute 20% of their post-offer shareholding to a mandatory three year lock-in, or an 18 month lock-in, in certain cases. Up next, Trade unions have asked the government to increase the income tax exemption limit, double the work on offer per family under the jobs guarantee scheme, and widen the social security net to cover the unorganised sector workers. In their pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the unions also sought the constitution of the 8th Pay Commission and the restoration of the OPS. Currently, under the new income tax regime, an income tax rebate is available for income up to Rs 7 lakh and a standard deduction of Rs 50,000 to make it attractive for individual taxpayers. Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh said the scope of MGNREGA needs to be doubled with the provision for a guaranteed 200 days of work for each family. Moving ahead, Paytm parent One97 Communications has seen a 19% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in flight bookings in January-March, significantly outpacing the industry growth rate of around 3%. The company’s ticketing business operates on the Paytm Travel platform. Paytm is the second largest online travel aggregators (OTAs) in train bookings in January-March, enhancing customer experience with new features like guaranteed seat assistance, and easy tatkal, the company said in an exchange filing on Monday. The growth in Paytm’s travel segment has been driven by partnerships and travel solutions. The company has collaborated with various global travel aggregators, including Skyscanner, Google Flights and Wego. Paytm’s travel ticket business falls within the marketing services vertical, which rose 1% y-o-y to Rs 395 crore in the March quarter. Lately, let’s take a look at the key stocks for today. GIFT Nifty indicated that Indian equity indices BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty 50 may see a positive opening on Tuesday. GIFT Nifty traded up by 55.50 points or 0.24% at 23,592 indicating a positive opening for domestic indices NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex on Tuesday. Previously, on Monday, the NSE Nifty 50 ended up by 36.75 points or 0.16% to settle at 23,537.85 while the BSE Sensex gained 131.18 points or 0.17% to 77,341.08. Key stocks to watch in trade today are – Happiest Mind, Maruti Suzuki, Borosil, Swan Energy, Amara Raja.