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Indian Share Market Open Flat, Ratan Tata Takes Charge of Tata Group.
Tue, 25 Oct 09:30 am

Major Asian stock markets have opened the day on a mixed note with stock market in Japan is trading higher by 0.6%. While, benchmark indices in Hong Kong and China are trading lower by 0.2% and 0.1% respectively.

Stock markets in Europe and US ended their previous session on a positive note.

The rupee is currently trading at 66.8 per US$.

Indian stock markets have opened the day on a flattish note. The BSE Sensex is trading marginally lower by 20 points (down 0.1%) and NSE Nifty is trading marginally higher by 13 points (up 0.1%). Both, BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap are trading lower by 0.1% respectively.

Major sectoral indices have opened the day in red with stocks from metal space are witnessing selling pressure.

At Equitymaster, we had conducted a poll back in 2012. The objective was simple. We wanted to find out who our readers perceive as the most trustworthy corporate group in the country. After polling 4,657 readers, a clear winner emerged. With close to 56% of the votes, the Tata Group blew away the competition.

Perhaps the results weren't surprising. The name Tata has long evoked respect and trustworthiness.

So how about changing the question a bit? How about ranking India's business groups in terms of shareholder returns over the past few years?

Here, the Tatas are a bit of a letdown. As many as seven of the nine largest listed Tata entities have put in a shoddy performance...not even earning their cost of capital. Needless to say, the performance of the group under Mr Mistry was in question.

Interestingly, in a key corporate developments yesterday, Mr Cyrus Mistry was removed as the chairman of Tata Sons. His predecessor Mr Ratan Tata, has been appointed as the interim chairman for four months and will be at the helm of the affairs for this period.

During Mr Mistry's tenure he focused on divestments from loss making enterprises and non-core businesses.

Reportedly, apart from the steel assets sale, this year the group has sold a host of assets across businesses. In August, Tata Chemicals Ltd  its urea plant in Babrala, Uttar Pradesh, to the Indian unit of Norway-based Yara International for Rs 26.7 billion. In July, the hotels business of the group <>Indian Hotels Co sold Taj Boston, one of its three US-based properties, for US$ 125 million (about Rs 8.40 billion).

In May, Tata Communications Ltd sold a 74% stake in its data centre business to a unit of Singapore's Temasek Holdings for US$ 634 million (approximately Rs 42.6 billion).

Mr Ratan Tata- at the helm of the group's affairs for around three decades till Mr Mistry took over, brings in a lot of experience with him and his vision will drive the company's fortunes in the coming months till the board finds a suitable replacement.

Radhika, our ValuePro editor has written a full series about which Tata Group companies are investment worthy and which are not in ValuePro Contenders.

As per an article in Livemint, Idea Celllular reported its results for the quarter ended September 2016. The revenues grew by 7.2% YoY during the quarter- the lowest ever growth reported by the company.

Further, the revenues growth in the data segment fell to 19% during the quarter as compared to a robust of 80% growth reported a year back. Data revenues fell mainly on the back of lower realizations. Average data revenue per user declined by 9.7% YoY during the quarter- far worse as compared to a 3.4% drop in the June quarter.

This scenario is set to worsen in the December quarter once the effect of Jio's welcome offer comes in. Recently, the company invested around Rs 128 billion in the spectrum auctions to expand its network to help retail customers.

The threat from Jio will be the key thing to watch out for going forward. The stock is trading lower by 3%.

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