Back in March of this year, when the Reserve Bank of India stepped in with a cap of 60% on the loan to value (LTV) ratio for gold loan NBFCs, it said it was acting to pre-empt systemic risks and to safeguard public funds. The verdict was that the gold loan companies depended too much […]Continue Reading
Business
British spirits major Diageo Plc has decided on a open offer to acquire a 26 per cent stake in Mallya owned United Spirits for Rs. 1,440 per share. According to the offer document posted in a leading newspaper, the offer period will start on 7 January 2013 and will stay until 18 January 2013. […]Continue Reading
From its humble origins Manappuram Finance has emerged as a leading national NBFC. Today the company has around 3000 branches across 26 states and UTs with Assets under Management of about Rs.11,600 crores, a workforce of about 22,000 and a live customer base of 16 lakhs. The man behind the entire transformation is Mr. […]Continue Reading
During the recently held meeting of the Union Finance Minister Sri P Chidambaram with Chiefs of public sector banks to review their performance, one of the points raised by the Finance Minister was the issues regarding denial of educational loans to eligible students, by banks. Finance Minister has asked Indian Banks Association ( IBA ) […]Continue Reading
Till the other day, India’s gold loan NBFCs set the pace for growth in the financial services sector. Is it now headed the microfinance way? After all, many observers have drawn parallels between the two to conclude that gold loan NBFCs are headed towards the same troubles that India’s Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) find themselves in. […]Continue Reading
After a much hyped IPO, which later became disastrous, Facebook shares sank to a record closing low. Yesterday investors got the first opportunit y to sell after the IPO. 270 million shares were available on trade yesterday, a massive number considering that the IPO was of 421 million shares. The weight of expectation was huge […]Continue Reading
Last year, around the time of last New Year, a local business publication called me up to find out what my hopes and expectations were for the New Year and for the coming decade (technically, a new decade began in 2011). This article is based largely on what I had said then. India needs entrepreneurship […]Continue Reading
Leading Business man and philanthropist M.A. Yusuf Ali was adjudged for the prestigious MBA Award 2012. He is the Managing Director of Abu Dhabi-headquartered EMKE Group of Companies which owns the LuLu Hypermarket chain in Middle East. Yousuf Ali is ranked as the second richest Indian ($1.75 billion) in the Gulf region by Arabian […]Continue Reading
HiLITE evolved as a group in 2007 with business operations based at Kozhikode, the district that benefitted the most from the Gulf boom of the 80s. The state witnessed a heightened activity in the real estate sector at that time due to the perceptible demand in hospitality, residential and retail sectors and this provided further impetus for the group’s growth. It soon Continue Reading
Eyebrows were raised when, in March 2010, the Manappuram group launched its first jewellery showroom at Valapad, in Kerala. The question many had in mind was, “Why this foray into retail jewellery?” And then there were others who thought that gold jewellery and gold loans were related businesses and therefore assumed it made perfect sense to move from one to the other. In Continue Reading
