Mumbai, June 10

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) has picked up a 20% stake in IIFL Home Finance for Rs 2,200 crore, a statement said.

Biggest deal

The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund will make the investment through a wholly-owned subsidiary, said IIFL Home Finance, which is among the largest affordable housing financiers with assets under management of Rs 23,617 crore.

On completion, the deal will be one of the largest equity investments in the affordable housing finance segment, by an external investor.

New Delhi, June 10

Auto, home and personal loans have become costlier with banks and other financial institutions increasing interest rates following the repo rate hike by RBI on Wednesday.

In its June 8 second bi-monthly monetary policy meeting review for FY23, RBI raised the benchmark repo rate by 50 basis points to 4.90% with immediate effect. It followed an off-cycle rate hike of 40 basis points in May to rein in the soaring inflation.

New Delhi, June 10

Industrial output grew by 7.1% in April due to improved performance by the power and mining sectors.

Manufacturing up 6.3%

"Though industrial growth has seen an uptick, it has been erratic and needs sustained growth over a long period of time. The next key data to watch for will be the CPI data due to be released next week," said Nish Bhatt of Millwood Kane, an investment consulting firm.

The manufacturing sector too recorded a growth of 6.3% and power and mining sectors grew by 11.8% and 7.8%, respectively, as per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) here on Friday.

Primary goods, intermediate goods, infrastructure and construction goods, and consumer non-durables sectors expanded by 10.1%, 7.6%, 3.8%, and 0.3%, respectively.

New Delhi, June 10

Irdai on Friday extended the 'use and file' procedure for most of the life insurance products, thereby allowing insurers to launch new products without prior approval of the regulator.

This comes days after Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) had extended similar relaxations to health insurance products as well as general insurance covers. In a press release, Irdai said it has extended the 'use and file' procedure for most of the life insurance products. "This move will enable life Insurers to launch most of the products (except individual savings, individual pensions and annuity) in a timely manner according to the dynamic needs of the market," the regulator said.

New Delhi, June 10

Fitch Ratings on Friday said it had revised the outlook on India's sovereign rating to Stable from Negative as downside risks to medium-term growth have diminished on rapid economic recovery.

Fitch Ratings kept the rating unchanged at 'BBB-'.

"The Outlook revision reflects our view that downside risks to medium-term growth have diminished due to India's rapid economic recovery and easing financial sector weaknesses, despite near-term headwinds from the global commodity price shock," it said.

It, however, cut the economic growth forecast to 7.8 per cent for the current fiscal (April 2022 to March 2023) from the 8.5 per cent prediction it made in March due to the inflationary impact of the global commodity price shock.

New Delhi, June 10

Lending major Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) has increased its Retail Prime Lending Rate (RPLR) on housing loans -- on which its Adjustable Rate Home Loans (ARHL) are benchmarked -- by 50 basis points.

The new rate will come into effect from June 10, it said on Thursday.

Effectively, now home loan rates of the lender would start from 7.55 per cent.

The rate revision by the lender comes a day after the Reserve Bank of India raised the key lending rates or repo rate by 50 basis points to tame high inflation, which essentially meant the cost of borrowings were going to rise.

Repo rate is the rate at which the RBI lends short-term funds to banks.

Going ahead, many other banks and non-banking financial companies are expected to follow suit on the interest rate hike. IANS

Washington, June 9

Indian economist Krishna Srinivasan has been appointed as the Director of the Asia and Pacific Department by IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva.

Srinivasan will succeed Changyong Rhee whose retirement from the organisation was announced on March 23.

"Krishna is a highly regarded member of our Fund family and has made many important and innovative contributions to our mission throughout his career at the Fund," Georgieva said on Wednesday.

Srinivasan is currently a Deputy Director and oversees the department's surveillance work on a number of large and systemically important countries such as China and Korea, Fiji and Vanuatu.

Mumbai, June 9

The RBI will soon come out with regulatory architecture for digital lending platforms, many of which are unauthorised and illegal, Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Thursday.

There have been increasing cases of alleged suicides of borrowers due to harassment by a few of the operators of digital lending apps.

"I think very soon we will be coming out with a broad regulatory architecture, which should be able to address the challenges that we are confronted with regard to lending through digital platforms, many of which are unauthorised, unregistered and, should I say, illegal," Das said.

He was speaking at the 'Iconic Week' celebrations as part of the 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' organised by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

NEW DELHI: Markets regulator SEBI has barred two firms — F6 Finserve and F6 Commodities — and four persons from the securities markets for five years in a case pertaining to misutilisation of client funds and securities. They have also been asked to refund the investors' money along with interest. The individuals banned are Pankaj Goel, Meenu Goel, Deepak Goel and Ruchika Goel. tns

New Delhi

CCI penalises 7 firms for cartelisation in tenders

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Thursday penalised seven companies for contravening various provisions of the Competition Act, 2002, including cartelisation for supplying a vital safety part to Indian Railways. The case was initiated on the basis of a lesser penalty application filed by one of the seven entities.

Mumbai, June 7

The country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank on Tuesday announced a 0.35% hike in lending rate.

The hike, which comes a day ahead of the RBI's scheduled policy review, is the second such move from the lender in as many months, taking the cumulative hike to up to 0.60%.

The RBI had surprised all with a 0.40% hike in key interest rates on May 4 to tame the inflation situation and is widely expected to follow up with further tightening of the policy on Wednesday.

HDFC Bank increased its Marginal Cost of funding-based Lending Rate by 0.35% from June 7, as per the new rate structure. The one-year MCLR, on which a bulk of consumer loans are pegged, will be 7.85% after the newest review as against 7.50% earlier.

Bengaluru, June 6

Gurugram-based ACME Cleantech Solutions Pvt Ltd on Monday signed a MoU with the Karnataka government to invest Rs 51,865 crore in the state for setting up a green hydrogen and ammonia plant in Mangaluru.

In the first phase, it will invest Rs 5,300 crore and in the second phase Rs 46,565 crore. It has proposed to generate 1,800 jobs.

New Delhi, June 3

Services sector activities improved further and expanded at strongest rate in over 11 years in May, supported by a substantial pick-up in new orders, even as inflation climbed to a record high, a monthly survey said on Friday.

"The reopening of the economy continued to help lift growth in the services sector. It was supported by the fastest upturn in new orders since July 2011," said Pollyanna De Lima, Economics Associate Director at Samp;P Global Market Intelligence. — PTI

Expansion for 10th month in a row

The Samp;P Global India Services PMI Business Activity Index jumped to 58.9 in May, up from 57.9 in April. The sector witnessed an expansion in output for the 10th straight month.

Chennai: Cryptocurrency investing application provider CoinSwitch has unveiled Crypto Rupee Index CRE8, to measure the performance of the Indian Rupee-based crypto market, the company said on Friday. The Crypto Rupee Index tracks the performance of crypto assets that represent over 85% of the total market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies traded in Rupee, a press release said. PTI

New Delhi

Aether Industries' shares zoom 21% in debut trade

Shares of speciality chemicals company Aether Industries on Friday surged 21% against its issue price of Rs 642. The stock made its debut at Rs 706. It rallied 20.98% to settle at its upper circuit limit of Rs 776.75. On NSE, it was listed at Rs 704, a premium of 9.65%. The stock jumped 20.62% to end at Rs 774.40.

New Delhi, June 3

Chinese smart devices company Xiaomi on Friday announced a rejig in the top management of the India unit with handing over the charge of the country's business to its global founding team member Alvin Tse.

Former India operations head Manu Jain has been elevated to a global role as group vice-president and is currently responsible for International Strategy, including International Marketing and PR. He now operates from the UAE.

New Delhi, June 3

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal has directed the new Board of the debt-ridden ILamp;FS Group to distribute Rs 16,361 crore to its creditors on pro-rata basis.

The interim distribution award of Rs 16,361 crore includes Rs 11,296 crore in cash and Rs 5,065 crore in InvIT units (Infrastructure Investment Trusts). Majority of this is to be distributed to the creditors of three large firms of the group — ILamp;FS, IFIN and ITNL.