BQuick On Aug. 12: Top 10 Stories In Under 10 Minutes   

This is a roundup of the day’s top stories in brief.

1. Board Shake-Up At Indiabulls Housing Finance

Mortgage lender Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. on Wednesday reshuffled its board of directors after with Sameer Gehlaut stepping down as its executive chairman.

• SS Mundra, a former deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India, has been appointed as the non-executive chairman with immediate effect.
• Mundra had joined the board as an independent director in 2018.
• The company said that Gehlaut will relinquish his post and take up the position of chief executive officer of another listed firm where he is the promoter—Indiabulls Ventures Ltd.
• Gehlaut will also serve as non-executive, non-independent director of Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd.

More on the reshuffle here.

2. How Jet Airways Killed Five Birds With One Stone

In the last three months, insolvent Jet Airways (India) Ltd. sold one of its non-core assets, settled with one of its lenders and repaid another.

• All this is unthinkable for a company under insolvency resolution since the law prohibits sale of assets and settlements with select creditors while proceedings are ongoing.
• But some creative thinking from the resolution professional, a reasonable creditors’ committee and the court’s blessing for a bona fide transaction has resulted in value protection for Jet Airways.

Read this BQ Blue Exclusive to see how Jet Airways pulled off the unthinkable.

3. The Tide May Be Turning For Indian Steelmakers

India’s steelmakers finally have some good news, four months after the lockdown to contain the pandemic disrupted operations in the world’s second-largest producer of the alloy.

• The domestic mills are taking a cue from the recovery in automobile production, improving demand in China and Europe, cheaper raw materials and an increase in product prices.
• That even propped up their stock prices from the March low.
• Jindal Steel & Power Ltd. has rallied more than 104% since March 24, when the nationwide lockdown was imposed. Shares of JSW Steel Ltd., Steel Authority of India Ltd. and Tata Steel Ltd. have gained 23%, 13% and 22%, respectively, during the period.
• Still, analysts don’t want to cheer just yet. Barring Jindal Steel, the average of Bloomberg consensus 12-month target prices implies a downside of 2-5% for other steelmakers.
• But with easing lockdown curbs and the government’s focus on infrastructure, the steel sector is expected to revive.

Here are the factors that may help Indian steelmakers.

4. Nifty Ends Flat, U.S. Stocks Rise

Indian equity markets ended little changed ahead of the weekly options expiry on Thursday. The flat close, however, brought an end to the four-day winning streak for the S&P BSE Sensex and a six-day winning streak for the NSE Nifty 50.

• The Sensex ended 0.1% lower at 38,369 while the Nifty ended 0.12% lower at 11,308. This was the sixth straight day of sub-1% moves for the Indian markets.
• Among the sectoral indices, PSU Banks, Media and Auto stocks were the top performers in today's session.
• The PSU Bank index ended of the day's high but with gains of 2.6% while the media and auto index gained 2.5% and 2% respectively.
• Broader markets outperformed in today's session. The midcap index ended 0.1% higher while the smallcap index ended with gains of 0.5%.

Follow the day’s trading action here.

Globally, cases crossed 20.3 million leaving over 7.42 lakh dead.

• Russia defended the safety of what it said was the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine and announced plans to start mass inoculation this month before clinical testing is completed.
• Nations in Asia struggled to contain new waves of infections.
• Australia’s Victoria state had its deadliest day and New Zealand put its biggest city, Auckland, back in lockdown after the first outbreak in more than three months.

Follow the global spread of the virus here.

9. Violence In Bengaluru Over Social Media Post

Areas under Pulakeshinagar constituency in Bengaluru resembled a war zone on Wednesday, hours after an unruly mob went on a rampage torching vehicles, irked over a communally sensitive social media post allegedly by put up by a relative of a Congress lawmaker.

• At least three people were killed in police firing and scores of others wounded, including at least 50 policemen in the violence and arson that erupted in the city on Tuesday night and continued till the wee hours of Wednesday.
• Charred vehicles, shards of glass from broken windows, stones and bricks lie strewn over the deserted roads of the violence-affected localities.
• Police have arrested about 110 people on charges of rioting.

More details here.

10. The World’s Best Hope For Enough Vaccine

As chief executive officer of the Serum Institute of India, the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, Adar Poonawalla can produce about 1.5 billion doses a year of almost any inoculation.

• He has machines that fill 500 glass vials every minute, and gleaming steel bioreactors almost two stories high that can make more than 10 million shots a month.
• He can claim, credibly, that he helps inoculate 65% of the world’s children, in more than 100 countries, against diseases such as measles and tuberculosis.
• And deep inside Serum’s lushly landscaped, 50-acre campus, about three hours inland from Mumbai, he’s already brewing the raw materials to make one of the leading experimental vaccines for the novel coronavirus at a scale that could make a serious difference to ending the pandemic.

Find out more about the extravagant billionaire’s immoderate ways which may help the world get out of its present crisis.