Category: Breaking Corporate India Earnings News

India’s banking regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lowered its growth forecast for the current fiscal to 5.7%, down from 6% forecast of expansion that the bank had made three months ago.

The results of professional forecasters’ survey conducted by the the apex bank in March 2009 that suggested moderation in economic activity for FY09. The median forecast for GDP growth in the survey came down to 6.6% and 5.7% respectively for the last and current fiscals.

Further, the sectoral growth rate forecast for the agriculture sector has been revised downwards from 3% to 1.6% and for industry, from 4.9% to 4.1%. Services sector, however, bucked the trend and the forecast for the sector was revised upwards from 9% in the last survey to 9.3% in the current survey.

Infosys Technologies has given a guidance for fiscal 2010, the revenues of the company is expected to report a decline by 6.7% to 3.1% in US dollar terms.

Infosys Technologies has announced its audited consolidated results for the quarter & year ended March 31, 2009:

In the consolidated results for the quarter ended March 31, 2009 the Group has posted a net profit after tax & minority interest rise of 29.14% to Rs 1,613 crore compared to Rs 1,249 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2008.

Total Income has increased for the quarter by 25.76% to Rs 5887 crore from Rs 4681crore in the same quarter last year

In the consolidated results for the year ended March 31, 2009 the Group has posted a net profit after tax & minority interest rise of 28.52% to Rs 5,988 crore for the year ended March 31, 2009 as compared to Rs 4,659 crore in previous fiscal.

Total Income of the group has increased by 27.42% to Rs 22,166 crore from Rs 17,396 crore of the previous year.

Reflecting the deepening of troubles of Indian exporters, India’s exports to the US dropped to lowest level in more than a year in February. The recession-hit US imported goods worth a total $1.58 billion in February, the lowest in 14-months.

Consumer spending has fallen sharply in the US due to the ongoing economic crisis, resulting in erosion of demand for most of the imported goods. Nearly all countries which export to the US like China, Taiwan and other South Asian countries, have witnessed sharp decline in exports to US.

India’s average monthly exports bill had been over $2 billion a month before the start of financial crisis in September last year. Since then, however, it has been showing consistent decline and reached its lowest point of $1.58 billion in February this year.

The negative IP growth was in line with the consensus forecast of a 1.3% yoy decline and our expectation of a 1.5% yoy decline. The monthly momentum rose by 0.6% mom in February, higher than the 0.2% mom rise in January. For the April-January months, IP grew 2.8% yoy versus 8.9% yoy in the same period previously.

The Capital Goods Index rose by 10.4% yoy in February versus a 8.9% yoy rise in the first 10 months of the year. The monthly momentum in capital goods rose 1.2% mom s.a. (seasonally adjusted) in February, versus a 0.5% mom decline in the previous month. The Infrastructure Index for February rose 2.2% yoy in February compared to 1.5% yoy in January. Production of
consumer goods shrunk 3% yoy, lower than the 5.9% yoy average growth in the first 10 months of the fiscal year. However, on a monthly basis, growth in the Consumer Goods Index rose 0.7% mom from a 0.3% mom fall in January.

Some investors have wondered about RCOM’s strong outperformance recently. RCOM is currently trading at a 10-15% premium to Bharti on FY10E EV/EBITDA. In the past, this premium has reached 25% also but only when the Towerco IPO looked imminent (Jan-08) and when the market was at its peak in terms of bullish sentiment. Such premium may not be repeated again in our view.

Most of the reasons for the sharp up-move have been macro & technical rather than company specific – increased risk appetite for high leverage B/S, esp. in the underweight index names which had been beaten down. Besides, a new rule on allowing non-compliance to AS-11 comes as a relief for companies with high forex debt (which are incurring huge translation losses). However, this does not benefit RCOM’s P&L as it anyway was not reporting as per AS-11 in FY09. In any case, relaxation in accounting rules does not mean there is no impact.

According to the latest data compiled by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have pulled out nearly Rs 50,000 crore from the domestic stock market in 2008-09.

FIIs’ net outflows stood at Rs 47,706.2 crore till March 30 in the current fiscal, as compared to huge inflows of Rs 53,000 crore in the previous fiscal.

However, analysts believe that FIIs are likely to resume investments in Indian equities in the later FY10 owing to higher returns as an attractive investment destination with sound fundamentals.