Axis Bank acquires Citi India’s retail assets for Rs 12,325 crore

Top of the Morning

In this episode, find out about the drop in telecom subscriber base, also find out about Bain Capital picking up 25% stake in IIFL Wealth

Business Term of the Day: Revolver

Axis Bank, the third-largest private sector lender in the country, will buy the retail business of Citibank India in an all-cash deal for Rs 12,325 crore. This is the biggest deal in the banking space since the acquisition of ING Vysya Bank by Kotak Mahindra Bank in 2014, which was valued at ~15,000 crore. The deal includes Citi’s credit cards, retail banking, wealth management, and consumer loan businesses, besides the consumer business of its non-banking financial company, Citicorp Finance. This, however, excludes Citi’s institutional client businesses in India

 Back home, in the primary market, the Veranda Learning Solutions IPO closes for subscription on Thursday. The public issue has been subscribed 1.3 times so far, with the retail portion receiving bids up to 7 times. The company aims to raise up to Rs 200 crore.

 India’s antitrust agency on Wednesday raided offices of tyre companies including Germany’s Continental AG and India’s Apollo Tyres and CEAT in a case of suspected competition law violations, four sources told Reuters.

 The telecom subscriber base in the country declined marginally to 116.94 crore in January this year, mainly due to the loss of a whopping 93.22 lakh mobile phone users by the largest telecom service provider Reliance Jio, the latest data released by TRAI said on Wednesday. Bharti Airtel was the only net gainer with the addition of 7.14 lakh users of its mobile services. Vodafone Idea lost 3.89 lakh wireless subscribers.

 Tata Steel is all set to acquire ferro alloys producing assets of Odisha-based Stork Ferro and Mineral Industries for ₹155 crore in an all-cash deal, the company informed on Wednesday. Accordingly, an asset transfer agreement has already been signed between the two companies.

Realty firm Godrej Properties Ltd on Wednesday said it has acquired a 9 acres land parcel in Pune to develop a housing project with an estimated revenue of ₹1,400 crore. The project located at Pimpri-Chinchwad in Pune will have a developable potential of about 1.7 million square feet of saleable area, with an estimated revenue potential of about ₹1,400 crore, the company said in a regulatory filing.

 Bain Capital has agreed to acquire a 24.98 percent equity stake in IIFL Wealth Management from some of the existing private equity investors such as General Atlantic and Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Holdings for around Rs 3679.95 crore.

US private equity firm KKR & Co set to raise Rs 3500 crore by selling around 10 percent of its stake in Max Healthcare through multiple block deals on Thursday. Kayak Investments, an affiliate of KKR will sell shares in the range of Rs 340- Rs 361 apiece, offering a discount of upto 6 percent from its Wednesday’s close, according to the terms of the deal seen by ET.

Moving on to markets

The key benchmark indices are heading for a muted start on the last session of fiscal year 2022 (FY22) tracking weak global sentiment.

The SGX Nifty Futures were quoting at 17,590 levels at 8:am, hinting at quiet opening gains of 30-odd points on the Nifty.

Domestic markets are likely to be volatile on Thursday on account of the monthly future & options expiry and trading activity related to the financial year closure. That apart, investors will also watch the OPEC+ meet later today.

As per reports, the US is considering releasing up to 180 million barrels of oil over several months from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to lower fuel prices.

Brent Crude is down 4 per cent in Asian trades this morning on the development.

The US markets slipped on Wednesday as Russian forces bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv, a day after promising to scale down operations. Dow Jones was down 0.2 per cent, the S&P 500 declined 0.6 per cent and Nasdaq shed 1.2 per cent.

he major Asian markets were seen trading on a tepid note.

 Business Term of the day

A ‘revolver’ is a credit card-holder who does not pay the full monthly bill. He pays only 10% of it. The rest of the bill amount ‘revolves’ (gets carried forward), on which the card issuer charges him a hefty interest, 2.5%-3% per month, i.e., 30%-36% a year.