India & Russia explore using Yuan as reference currency

Top of the Morning

In this episode, find out why LIC is looking at IPO in April, also find out about Brookfield’s plans to buy a substantial stake in Mahindra Susten

Business Term of the Day: Reference exchange rate
India and sanctions-hit Russia are exploring the possibility of using China’s yuan as a reference currency to value the rupee-ruble trade mechanism. The two countries may also look at a floating rate arrangement as India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, considers buying oil from Russia at a discounted rate to cool inflationary pressures. Life Insurance Corp. (LIC) of India will go public in April instead of March as decided earlier, three officials aware of the change in plans said, as the ongoing market turbulence makes the government wary of rushing India’s largest initial public offering. HDFC Bank: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lifted restrictions on HDFC Bank, allowing it to launch digital business-generating activities planned under its Digital 2.0 programme. The curbs were imposed by the central bank in December 2020 after repeated outages at the lender’s data centre. The restrictions barred HDFC Bank from launching any of the activities planned under the Digital 2.0 programme as well as the sourcing of new credit cards. One97 Communications: The RBI asked Paytm Payments Bank to stop opening new accounts amid “material supervisory concerns” observed in the bank. The bank has also been directed to appoint an IT audit firm to conduct a comprehensive system audit of its IT system. Gail India will also be on the radar as the board has approved the payment of second interim dividend of Rs 5 per equity share for the financial year FY22. The record date for eligibility of shareholders for payment of dividend has been fixed as March 22. Ruchi Soya: The Baba Ramdev-led Patanjali Ayurved’s owned edible oil firm will hit the capital market with its follow-on public offer (FPO) on March 24 to raise up to Rs 4,300 crore. Jubilant FoodWorks: The master franchise of brands such as Domino’s and Dunkin’ Donuts said its CEO Pratik Rashmikant Pota has resigned. Pota will continue in his current role till June 15, 2022. Oil India: The Government headhunter PESB has picked a non-upstream executive, Ranjit Rath to head India’s second largest state oil and gas producer, Oil India. Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is looking to buy a substantial stake in Mahindra Susten. Avendus Capital is running the sales process for the potential deal that values Mahindra Susten at an enterprise and equity value of around ₹7,000 crore and ₹1700 crore. Mahindra Susten has a growing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) business, besides 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar assets. With the country registering decline in Covid-19 cases, the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha are set to resume their normal sittings for the second part of the Budget session. The second part of the Budget session of the Parliament will resume on Monday. Mumbai announced detailed plans to zero out carbon emissions by 2050, a target that puts it two decades ahead of India’s national goal and makes it the first city in South Asia to set such a timeline   Moving on to markets Live market updates: The key benchmark indices are likely to start the week on a weak note amid concerns of rise in geo-political tensions after Russian missiles hit a large Ukrainian base near NATO-member Poland’s border on Sunday. At 8 am, the SGX Nifty futures were quoting 16,555 levels, hinting at a start with a loss of around 90 points for the Nifty50. This week remains eventful as the US Federal Reserve is set to meet on March 15 and 16, where it will likely announce a quarter-point hike in interest rates as widely expected. Investors will also closely watch developments on the Russia-Ukraine talks, which will be held today for the fourth time. Asia, shares in Japan and Australia edged higher, while Hong Kong and Shanghai declined. Brent crude rose 3.1 per cent on Friday to settle at $112.67 per barrel. Although, this morning, the prices were seen sliding to $109 on hopes of peace from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine talks.   Business Term of the Day eference exchange rates are a set of daily foreign exchange rates published by leading central banks. Reference exchange rates are used by companies and other participants in FX markets. They are based on a regular daily concertation procedure between the central bank and leading commercial banks. Reference exchange rates are published for information, not trading, purposes.