EXCLUSIVE: It was a massively brave call by Dhoni to bat ahead of Yuvraj in WC final, says Upton

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One six didn't win us the World Cup: Gautam Gambhir

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Retailers to put rental ball in malls’ court

With Covid cases surging and footfalls and sales dropping in retail, brands are again in rental negotiation mode with malls. The earlier rental concessions ended in December 2020 or on March 31 this year for most retailers. But with the second infection wave dampening businesses by more than 20-50% in many states, some retailers say they will ask malls to move to a pure revenue-share model till the time the situation improves. “I have two stores in Maharashtra, there I will approach the malls immediately,” said Pawan Khandelwal, CEO of premium department store chain Iconic. “Contractually you are bound to pay in full. But malls and retailers have worked together last year… So we are thinking of making requests to them.”Last year, DLF, which operates five malls in the National Capital Region, had offered that retailers should pay 25% of rent in June, 50% in July-September and 75-80% in October-December. Unity Group, which operates several malls in Delhi NCR, had extended rental rebates from the original deadline of December to March 2021 for those retailers and restaurants who were unable to recover 75% of their pre-pandemic business levels.81866142Geographic Spread UnevenThis time, the geographic spread of infections is uneven so far and therefore the impact on business too is limited to certain regions. “We have to request malls as business is severely dented in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat,” said the CEO of a global retail group. “Some markets are doing fine, but wherever it is challenging we have to ask the malls for help.”However, some shopping centres are hardening their stance saying that they have already extended enough support to their tenants and are currently unable to take it any further as they themselves have to service huge debts to banks. Some mall owners are saying they will watch the situation for longer.“It is too premature to talk about this. We have to see how it pans out in the next couple of weeks,” said Mukesh Kumar, CEO of Infiniti Malls, which runs two shopping centres in Mumbai. These two malls have seen their footfalls drop by 20-25% in in the last two weeks. “We understand if there is a lockdown, if malls continue to operate only until 8 PM for a longer time, then we have to see how to support retailers,” Kumar said.

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India aims a daily target of 5 mn jabs in Phase-3

The Centre has set a daily target of 5 million jabs in the third phase of the vaccination drive which will cover all those aged 45 and above from Thursday, National Health Authority CEO RS Sharma told ET. Private hospitals had been allowed more flexibility to meet this target, he said.“In the second phase, we had touched 3 million on some days. We want to increase the speed to at least 5 million. This is a race against time. The more we vaccinate, the more we will be able to break that chain of transmission. This is what we are aiming for. We have the vaccine supply and capacity for vaccinating 5 million per day. However, ultimately it is the willingness of the people to come forward and get vaccinated,” he said, adding that the government was working on the “minimum wastage and maximum speed” mantra.‘Payment Process Streamlined’For this, Sharma told ET that private hospitals have been given the flexibility to make weekly instead of monthly procurements.“We have told them that they don’t need to procure for a month, they can make weekly payments and get vaccines. This should not deter them from publishing a timetable for a month,” he said.The government had asked private hospitals to indicate vaccination slots to beneficiaries up to a month but the visibility being offered continues to be at up to 15 days, said Sharma.“Private hospitals look at their stocks and then give the timetable. We have assured them of adequate supply and now told them that even if you do not have vaccines, you can publish the time slots for a month. You procure as you use the vaccines,” he said.

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Homebound: India's vaccine exports to dwindle

India opened up its coronavirus inoculation programme to people above 45 on Thursday as infections surge, which will delay vaccine exports from the world's biggest maker of the drug.The country, with the most number of reported COVID-19 cases after the United States and Brazil, has so far injected 64 million doses and exported nearly as many. This has raised criticism at home as India's per-capita vaccination figure is much lower than many countries.The government has previously said that people over 45 can register for inoculation from April 1.India initially focused on front-like workers, the elderly and those suffering from other health conditions, unlike some richer countries that have made all their adults eligible to get inoculated.New Delhi says it is working towards that goal, and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan tweeted that there would be no vaccine shortage in the country as it opens up the vaccination programme."Centre to continually replenish states' supplies," he said on Twitter. "Avoid overstocking and under stocking."India has already decided to delay big vaccine exports for now, including to the WHO-backed global vaccine alliance COVAX.It is currently using the AstraZeneca vaccine and a shot developed at home by Bharat Biotech, which is struggling to step up supplies. India's drug regulator is soon expected to approve Russia's Sputnik V vaccine.India has reported more than 12 million infections, including a big surge last month. Deaths stand at more than 162,400.

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3 pharma stocks to bet on: Gurmeet Chadha

Have a balanced allocation and go where there is earnings to support the lofty valuations, says Gurmeet Chadha, Co-Founder, Complete Circle Consultants. What according to you is the next big trigger for the market?The biggest trigger is going to be earnings. There will be differentiation in a lot of sectors, especially in banking. The actual NPAs will be reported and so the real picture would come out in terms of how the collection efficiencies are progressing, how the overdue is playing out, what percentage of restructuring as guided by management is being adhered to. Liquidity events are also very important. We keep blaming liquidity for the rally but liquidity essentially chases growth and the next stimulus the focus on infra to me would be very critical especially for cyclicals and commodities. I genuinely think we are in a commodity cycle and probably just the first leg has gone through. The market has virtually doubled from last March to this March -- from 7,500 to 14,800 almost 15,000 -- and so some amount of caution is warranted. There is euphoria in a lot of pockets and so hope trades and the economy-getting-reopened trades should be avoided. As far as valuation and earnings are concerned, wherever possible, margin of safety should be adhered to. Do not ignore fixed income despite rising inflation. India’s inclusion in the emerging market bond index, world bond index makes the shorter end of the yield curve pretty sweet. So have a balanced allocation and go where there is earnings to support the lofty valuations. Given the fresh spike in Covid cases, do you think any of the healthcare names are worthy of buying?Healthcare is a pretty secular story with a long-term view. The entire Nifty pharma index market cap is about Rs 7.5 lakh crore, which is less than HDFC Bank’s and it has about 4% weightage in Nifty. Compare it with any developed market. The weightage of healthcare would be 10% to 12%. We do like the API players and Divi's Labs has been a long favourite. They have done Rs 1,800 crore capex in the last two years. In the next two-three years, they look set for a nice double digit growth in the top line and may be 20% plus EPS growth. The nine-month margin for this year so far is above 40%. That tells us why it is valued at probably 15-16 times sales. We also like a smaller name in this space -- Neuland Laboratories -- which has a nice mix of GDS, CDMO and oral peptide, peptide synthesis. We like Cipla and also some of the diagnostics names. There has been some consolidation in pharma after the initial runup when the post Covid rally happened. Once the earnings come in, we should see more legs in the pharma space. What has spurred the momentum within the real estate space? Housing is a force multiplier. It is difficult to speculate but you could see more sops either in terms of extension of stamp duty cuts and related measures. RERA also has been very transformative in terms of doing consolidation in the industry. For example, the pace of project development for Godrej Properties has really gone up exemplarily. Their near term project guidance talks of 14 projects with 8.5 million square feet, one of the shortest turnaround time and they also have a nice strategy of spreading their project development across the country in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and NCR. Their strategy is also a little different. Other than outright buying of land, they are also tying up with landowners for joint development. They are also project managers for a few developers with 10-11% share of the revenue. We need to see whether there is any cash strain because of the number of projects they have done looks good. DLF also looks good. It is largely north bound. A couple of south bound real estate players also look good but I am more constructive on the fundamental side over the long term. Only housing and building material names, players like PolyCab, Havells, Kajaria, companies into white goods are the ones which probably will see a cleaner balance sheet, high ROEs and possibly where you can see a broader consumption playing out. What about the entire defensive pocket? Would you tilt towards IT or FMCG or believe that diversification and looking at both of these sectors would be a prudent strategy?I would not call IT defensive. It is a growth sector to be in both in the medium and long term. The deal win momentum is quite robust both in large and midcap names. Also, for Infosys, digital makes up 50% of their revenue. It is growing at about 30%. The pricing pressure on digital is not there because now it is more outcome driven and large deals initially have a bit of a stress on margin but over a period of time they become more accretive and helps get more deals. In IT, there’s opportunity in Cloud and then opportunity would come with the interconnected systems on Cloud which would generate data and which will lead to opportunities in data analytics and AI and Internet of Things. Also, some of the midcap names look good. MindTree for example, has seen both client count and employee count stabilise post their acquisition. In consumption, I like this entire food consumption space. Tata Consumer has three strong legs of growth-- beverage and tea, Tata Salt and Tata Sampann brand which is into pulses, spices and other ready to eat products. I also like city gas distributors and to me they are consumption plays. Players like Gujarat Gas look very good. It is a very secular story with rising demand both from industrial as well as households.

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Figuring out Suez Canal mess may take years

TOKYO: It took six days to prise free a giant container ship that ran aground and clogged the Suez Canal, one of the world’s most crucial shipping arteries. It could take years to sort out who will pay for the mess.Cargo companies, insurers, government authorities and a phalanx of lawyers, all with different agendas and potential assessments, will not only need to determine the total damage but also what went wrong. When they eventually finish digging through the morass, the insurers of the ship’s Japanese owner are likely to bear the brunt of the financial pain.The costs could add up quickly.There are the repairs for any physical damage to the Ever Given, the quarter-mile-long ship that got stuck in the Suez. There is the bill for the tugboats and front-end loaders that dug the beached vessel out from the mud. The authority that operates the Suez Canal has already said the crisis has cost the Egyptian government up to $90 million in lost toll revenue as hundreds of ships waited to pass through the blocked waterway or took other routes.And the stalled ship held up as much as $10 billion of cargo a day from moving through the canal, including cars, oil, livestock, laptops, sneakers, electronics and toilet paper. Companies delivering goods may have to pay customers for missed deadlines. If any agricultural goods went bad, producers may look to recoup lost revenue.All of these cascading effects could amount to insurance claims in the hundreds of millions of dollars as well as broader losses from the delays in the global supply chain.The financial mess will ensnare a multinational web of businesses, led by the Japanese owner of the ship, its Taiwanese operator and the German management agent that hired the crew, as well as myriad cargo companies that rented space in the ship’s containers and a sprawling pool of insurance firms stretching from Tokyo to London.The ultimate responsibility may fall to the insurers for the ship’s owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., a subsidiary of the 120-year-old privately owned Japanese shipbuilder Imabari.Teams from the German company that hired the crew and a consortium of insurers for the ship’s owner are just starting to investigate what caused the marooning of the Ever Given. Authorities in Panama, where the ship is registered, are also conducting an inquiry, as are investigators for other interested parties. Their findings, whether they align or not, will complicate questions of liability, keeping claims adjusters and lawyers busy for years as they sort through the finger-pointing.Investigators want to know “who was responsible for the disruption — was it the crew, the pilots working for the Suez Canal Authority, or is it just an act of nature or a freak accident by the wind?” said Richard Oloruntoba, an associate professor of supply chain management at the Curtin Business School in Perth, Australia.Even after inquiries are completed, Oloruntoba added, “it’s not clear-cut. It all depends on how good the lawyers are and also the contracts that were entered into.”The most straightforward aspect is the damage to the ship and the canal. In the shipping business, those costs usually fall to the insurers of the ship’s owner — in this case, a consortium led by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance in Tokyo with Tokio Marine and Sompo Japan. Initial reports indicate the ship did not suffer much harm, and there was no pollution leak.The consortium is also likely to be on the hook for the salvage costs to free the ship, which swelled as experts and equipment were mobilized on short notice. Robert Mazzuoli, an insurance analyst at Fitch Ratings, estimated that bill could run into the tens of millions, although there are many variables.The trickier piece of the puzzle is the cargo. Companies that booked containers on the Ever Given, as well as some of the 400 ships that had to wait in line outside the canal while it was jammed, may want to file claims.But most insurance policies do not cover the economic losses for cargo delays. So companies will have to make a specific case as to why they are entitled to compensation.Such claims could reach hundreds of millions of dollars.The ships carrying the most time-sensitive cargo, such as livestock or produce, could make the strongest argument. Those vessels, though, were allowed to go through first once the waterway was cleared.For the most part, claims around cargo might be “impractical,” said Jeff N.K. Lee, a lawyer in Taipei, Taiwan, who specializes in commercial and transportation law.“While the ship is just parked there, the cargo isn’t actually being damaged,” Lee said. “The only damage is that it’s delayed.“Say I have a batch of cloth, and on top of the time it took to come to Taiwan, it got stuck for six or seven days,” he said. “It just sat there. Will it go bad? It won’t.”There is a caveat. The ship’s owner could have to pay for cargo delays if its crew is found to be at fault for the accident.Some so-called third-party claims related to delayed cargo may be covered by yet another insurer for the ship, the UK P&I Club. The same goes for any claims by the Suez Canal Authority, which operates the waterway and might file over any loss of revenue.Nick Shaw, CEO of the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs, the umbrella group that includes the UK P&I Club, said the insurer would “make decisions together with the shipowner as to which ones had validity and which ones are illegitimate.”Adding to the complexity of the Suez accident are the layers upon layers of insurance. Reinsurers, companies that cover the risk of other insurance companies, come into play for claims above $100 million. Between insurance and reinsurance, the ship’s owner has coverage for those third-party claims up to $3.1 billion, although few experts believe the damages will run that high.l magnify.”The sheer size of the Ever Given makes the situation all the more labyrinthine. Aside from time of war, the Suez Canal has never been blocked quite so spectacularly or for as long a time as it was with the Ever Given, and this is the biggest ship to run aground.The ship is as long as the Empire State Building is tall, with the capacity to carry 20,000 containers stacked 12 to 14 high. The Ever Given is one of a fleet of 13 in a series designed by Imabari, part of a push to lower the costs per container and make the ships more competitive in an increasingly fierce market dominated by Chinese and South Korean shipbuilders.“The bigger the ships get, the risk is, whenever you have an incident like this, is that you are putting more of your eggs into one basket,” said Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research at Drewry UK, a shipping consultancy. “So the claims will magnify.”

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