NIFTY, SENSEX END NEARLY FLAT, YIELDSLOWERON RBI RATE CUT
BENGALURU: Indian shares ended little changed on Thursday as they came off early highs, while bond yields lowered after the central bank in a surprise move cut interest rates and, as expected, shifted its stance to “neutral” in a bid to boost a slowing economy. The rate cut by The Reserve Bank of India could aid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which wants to boost lending and lift growth as it faces elections by May. The 10-year benchmark government bond yield fell to 7.50%, from Wednesday’s close of 7.56%, while the rupee strengthened to 71.41 to the dollar, compared with its previous close of 71.56. The Sensex closed down 0.01% at 36,971.09, its first fall in six sessions.
MRF third quarter profit skids 18% to ₹279 crore
NEW DELHI: Tyre major MRF on Thursday reported 18% decline in stand-alone net profit at ₹279.26 crore for December quarter 2018, hit by increase in overall expenses during the period. The company had reported a net profit of ₹340.51 crore in October-december 2017-18. Revenue from operations, however, rose to ₹4,033.76 crore for the latest quarter as compared with ₹3,798.82 crore in the year-ago period, MRF said in a regulatory filing. Total expenses in the third quarter 2018-19 increased to ₹3,750.25 crore from ₹3,331.14 crore in the same period a year ago. The company’s board, which met on Thursday, also recommended an interim dividend of ₹3 per share.
Lamborghini sees 60% sales growth in India
NEW DELHI: Italian super sports carmaker Automobili Lamborghini expects sales to grow around 60% this year in India, a country which it sees breaking into its top 15 global markets in the next four to five years, a senior company official said Thursday. The company, which sold 45 units in India last year, on Thursday launched its new Huracan Evo super sports car priced at ₹3.73 crore in India, the first country where it has commercially launched the vehicle. Lamborghini India head Sharad Agarwal said, when the company launched luxury SUV Urus in the beginning of 2018, it was looking at two-fold increase in sales over “our 2016 achievement in next three years, but we could do 2x in the year of the launch itself”. “If we look at our (2018) achievement, keeping 2016 as base, then we should look at achieving three-fold in 2019,” Agarwal said.
Amazon changes biz structures in India
NEW DELHI : One of the biggest sellers on Amazon.com Inc’.s India website has returned after the online retail giant changed its business structures to comply with new federal e-commerce curbs that took effect last week, two sources told Reuters. India’s modified foreign direct investment rules that kicked in on February 1, prevent companies such as Amazon from selling products from vendors where they, or their group companies, have equity holdings. Amazon was forced to remove hundreds of thousands of items sold by top vendors Cloudtail and Appario as it indirectly held 49%equity stakes in both firms. On Thursday, Cloudtail had returned with more than 300,000 products listed on Amazon, after Amazon cut its indirect holding to 24%, one of the sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
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