India

• Dish TV India (DITV IN) has been under the limelight for quite a while. ever since the legal tussle with shareholders.
• The last six months have seen several events happening at the corporate governance level; the trials of churn in board and the required shareholders approvals has troubled the company.
• Even though there have been monumental changes in the board such as resignation of Mr.Goel, the battle with the shareholders is still far from the finale.

• Infosys Ltd (INFO IN) (Infosys Ltd Sp Adr (INFY US)) on 5-6 December announced an on-market buyback of more than US$1.1bn. 
• The company has done buybacks before, and it is worthwhile looking at the details.
• The buy-back looks small, and may be impactful near-term in near-space. 

• After a 50 bp hike three times a row, RBI softened and increased the repo rate by 35 basis points to 6.25%.
• Consequently, the standing deposit facility (SDF) rate stands adjusted to 6%, and the marginal standing facility (MSF) rate and the Bank Rate to 6.50%
• The basic facts on the ground have not changed much since the last policy in September-end: global headwinds, inflationary pressures arising from both exogenous and endogenous sources, and adverse terms of trade balanced against an economy exhibiting nascent growth with all the growth engines – industrial, agricultural and service sectors – in early stages of combustion.

• Abrdn PLC (ABDN LN) is looking to sell its entire 10.21% stake in HDFC Asset Management (HDFCAMC IN) following which it will no longer be a sponsor of HDFC MF.
• Depending on who the stake is sold to, there could be an immediate increase in the investability weight in the FTSE All-World Index.
• More importantly, the increased free float will result in an increase in the FIF for the MSCI Standard Index and index inclusion could take place in February.

In the next webinar, we welcome Smartkarma Insight Provider Gauri Anand , who will be sharing with us her Top indian Equity Picks and the investment philosophy behind each of her picks. Have any burning questions about companies like Indian Energy Exchange (IEX IN), VA Tech Wabag (VATW IN), or UPL Ltd (UPLL IN)? Get them answered in the live Q&A that will conclude the session.

The webinar will be hosted on Wednesday, 21 December 2022, 17:00 SGT/HKT.

Gauri Anand is a mid-small cap specialist based in India. With a focus on equities, Gauri combs top down and bottom up approaches to identify themes and value stocks at its inflexion point. Sector agnostic with a value oriented – Inflexion approach, Gauri dives into bottom Up ideas with a biased towards Sustainability and ESG. 

The Asia Monthly focuses on providing updates on recent events, information on new issues and spread movements, as well as summarising our top picks. The Asia Monthly is intended to broaden investors’ understanding of the Asian USD high-yield market.

• In Dec 2021, Star Health (STARHEAL IN) (SHAI), the largest private health and retail health insurance company in India, raised around US$851m in its India IPO.
• SHAI insured 20.5m people in FY21. SHAI primarily offers retail health insurance which accounted for 87.9% of its FY21 GWP. Individual agents accounted for 97% of its FY21 GWP.
• In this note, we will talk about the upcoming lockup expiry.

• Balrampur Chini Mills (BRCM IN) is one of the major integrated sugar manufacturing companies in India. Besides sugar, the company also engages in the business of ethanol and power generation.
• Balrampur has managed to turnaround its free cash flows and earnings quality. Additionally, it has also stabilized working capital on the back of declining debt. 
• While there are not many red flags, care must be given to inventory reconciliation with bank statement.

• BLS International Services (BLSIN IN) is engaged in business of providing outsourcing and administrative task of Visa, Passport and Consular services to various Diplomatic Missions across the world.
• BLS is troubled with several forensic discomforts. One should take into account the discomforts on the subsidiaries end and other linked entities like DSS Gulf Realtors.
• Other forensic setbacks include alarming bad debts, misstatement of operating cash flows and several grey areas pertaining to disclosure norms followed by the company.

The Asia HY Trade Book for November 2022 includes a summary of our recommendations, as well as our high-conviction ideas. The report also features relative-value charts and lists of the bonds across Asia (ex-Japan) HY and crossover credits.

• Lava International (9263793Z IN)  is one of the leading end-to-end focused mobile handset and mobile handset Solutions Company based in India, with operations in a number of countries.
• Major business risk arises from external environment, as Lava is one of the prominent leaders in feature phone segment, where the market is dying. 
• Key forensic takeaways pertain to ECL provisioning and some absurd trend in line items. There are several discomforts on the governance end as well which must not be ignored.

• Mahindra & Mahindra (MM IN) ‘s production data provides more questions than answers.
• The drop in production for Thar and XUV 700 in October in spite of the high order backlog is surprising. 
• Considering the industry outlook and the existing sales and production for these two models, we believe this demand forecast may not materialise

• We interact with Home First Finance (HOMEFIRS IN)  branch managers to understand the reason behind the increase in bounce rates.
• The overall NACH data also shows a high rejection rate in October despite being a festive month, which is surprising.
• With 92% of Home First Finance (HOMEFIRS IN) loans being disbursed in less than 48 hours, this focus on TAT could lead to higher than industry-average asset quality issues. 

• Adani Enterprises (ADE IN) (“ADL”) on Tuesday announced a Board Meeting for Friday to consider capital raising options. Multiple media sources suggest a record Indian Follow-on Public Offering of INR200bn.
• The company has bid for/bought multiple assets recently, and proposed investments plan of up to US$150bn in 10yrs in renewables, cement, airports, healthcare to aim at a US$1trln valuation.
• This will get complicated, interesting, and is not necessarily going to come out well.

• Navi (NAVI IN) is a tech-driven financial products and services company in India, with an end-to-end digital system, focusing on three key offerings i.e. lending, insurance and asset management.
• Company has taken a major write offs in 9MF22 which may have glorified the NPA ratios. Moreover, there is an element of opaqueness on the equity issuance transaction in F20.
• Other key forensic takeaways include high cash balances in current account, quality of goodwill, etc.

• NirogStreet, an Ayurveda tech startup based in Delhi, India, has received US$12 million in a Series B round of funding led by Jungle Ventures.

• With technology-based interventions, NirogStreet enables doctors by giving technology to run their clinic, access to quality medicines inventory in real-time, and avenues to learn and earn while also closely working with the government, regulators, and research organisations.

• It has over 50,000 Ayurvedic doctors in the community and encourages them to create and publish case studies and research reports to bring evidence-based treatment similar to modern medicine.

• In this insight, we take a look at the potential ADDs/DELs for the NIFTY 50, 100, and 500 Indices in the run up to the March 2023 Rebalance.
• In October 2022, NIFTY Indices Ltd initiated a market consultation recently on the “treatment of merger/demerger in Nifty equity indices” and its outcome has been confirmed now.
• Separately, Tata Motors DVR (TTMT/A IN) – previously ineligible for NIFTY 100 Inclusion for liquidity reasons – could become eligible for the March 2023 Rebalance event.

Lucror Analytics Morning Views comprise our fundamental credit analysis, opinions and trade recommendations on high yield issuers in the region, based on key company-specific developments in the past 24 hours. Our Morning Views include a section with a brief market commentary, key market indicators and a macroeconomic and corporate event calendar.

• Vedanta Resources

Lucror Analytics Morning Views comprise our fundamental credit analysis, opinions and trade recommendations on high yield issuers in the region, based on key company-specific developments in the past 24 hours. Our Morning Views include a section with a brief market commentary, key market indicators and a macroeconomic and corporate event calendar.

• JSW Steel Ltd