Deccan Chronicle

Vedanta beats all profit estimates on tax gain

- SWANSY AFONSO

Future First Insurance Broking has teamed up with Arohan Financial Services, part of the Aavishkaar Group, eastern India’s largest NBFC MFI, to offer simple, customized and affordable insurance products in areas of major livelihood threats including health, accident, natural calamities, theft etc. While Arohan has 2.2 million touch points across the country, Future First has already distribute­d insurance products to 5 lakh under-served people. Future First, now has plans to cover 3 million people from the underserve­d segment over the next couple of years.

Manoj Kumar Nambiar, Managing Director & Board Member, Arohan Financial Services, said; “Enabling financial inclusion has been the foremost focus of Arohan’s unique products and service propositio­ns, made possible on an end-to-end technology-driven platform which has been recognised as the best in the industry. I am certain that our partnershi­p with Future First will play a significan­t role in the realisatio­n of our vision of impacting over 20 million lives by the year 2025.”

Vineet Rai, Founder & Group Chairman, Aavishkaar Group, said, “Aavishkaar Group exists to bridge the opportunit­y gap for the emerging 3 billion in Asia and Africa. Across Aavishkaar Capital — the equity vertical, Intellecap — the knowledge vertical and the group’s lending businesses, we seek to ensure that access to finance is made available to the underserve­d.” He said that since Arohan already has such large ecosystem, it can come up with vital feedbacks while designing of the customized products, which is Future First’s forte.

Vedanta reported a 61 per cent jump in quarterly profit as a one-time tax benefit countered lower metal prices and slowing demand.

Net income advanced to Rs

21.58 billion ($300 million) in the three months to September from Rs 13.43 billion a year earlier, the Anil Agarwal-owned company said in a statement. That beat the Rs 6.87 billion average analyst estimate. Sales declined

3 per cent to Rs 217.4 billion. Prices of most commoditie­s produced by Vedanta were lower during the quarter. The slowest growth in India in six years also weighed on sales and margins of domestic metal makers, including rival Hindalco Industries, which earlier this week posted a 33 per cent slump in profits.

The company saw a tax gain of Rs 16.1 billion compared

Mumbai, Nov. 14: Union Bank of India on Thursday reported a net loss of Rs 1,194 crore for the September quarter owing to higher provisioni­ng.

The bank had a net profit of Rs 139 crore in the same quarter of 2018-19. Total income for the September quarter rose to Rs 10,556.57 crore from Rs 9,438.26 crore in the same period a year ago, the bank said.

Its provisioni­ng loans jumped for bad to Rs

with an expense of Rs 7.18 billion during the same period a year earlier.

Tax gains lifted quarterly net income by 15 per cent at unit Hindustan Zinc Ltd., which contribute­d more than half of Vedanta’s profit

3,328.30 crore from Rs

1,710 crore parked aside for the same a year ago. Overall provisioni­ng was of Rs 3,858.75 crore as against Rs 1,715.55 crore.

The asset quality of the bank continued to remain bad, as the gross non-performing assets stood at

15.24 per cent of the gross loans at the end of September 2019, as compared to 15.74 per cent a year ago. in the year ended March.

Vedanta’s earnings were boosted by higher volumes at its Gamsberg zinc mine in South Africa, lower costs at its aluminum unit and increased sales of iron ore in Karnataka.

Flipkart is conducting a pilot project to collect plastic packaging back from consumers at select hubs across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Dehradun, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, and Ahmedabad.

The pilot aims at ensuring existing plastic packaging in the system is recycled and reused. Under the programme, Flipkart will send out an intimation to consumers asking them to voluntaril­y hand over plastic packaging to Flipkart wishmaster­s for its proper disposal, at the time of product delivery. The collected packets will then be sent to registered vendors to ensure it is disposed of responsibl­y to avoid ending up in landfills. Wish-masters have also been provided proper training in explaining the various facets of this initiative to consumers to ensure high participat­ion.

This programme is in continuati­on of Flipkart’s sustainabi­lity agenda under which it has already reduced the utilizatio­n of singleuse plastic by 33 per cent and aims to move towards 100 per cent recycled plastic consumptio­n in its supply chain by March 2021. Towards this goal, Flipkart has filed for EPR (Extended Producer Responsibi­lity) and is targeting 30 per cent collection back in the first year. The company is also committed to maximizing recycled content in singleuse plastic to boost the recycling ecosystem and reduce virgin plastic consumptio­n.

Earlier this year, the company announced the introducti­on of electric vehicles in its last-mile delivery network with the aim to replace nearly 40 per cent of its existing last-mile fleet of delivery vans with EVs by March 2020.

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