Showing posts with label IIPM New Delhi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIPM New Delhi. Show all posts

Monday, September 10, 2012

M. R. Rao, CEO, SKS Microfinance Ltd.

Launched in 1998, SKS Microfinance is one of the fastest growing Micro Financial Institutions (MFIs) in the world, which has served more than 5 million women members in poor regions of India till date. Of course, the company has been in the news for the wrong reasons following the unceremonious exit of its ex-CEO Suresh Gurumani. Current CEO M. R. Rao talks about the company’s business model and challenges it faces: 

B&E: What is the maximum amount of loan that can be availed and repayment options available?
MR: All members (clients) are eligible to borrow Rs.12,000 depending upon the activity which the member undertakes in the first year of joining SKS Group. From the second year onward, the loan size is increased by Rs.4,000. Loan repayments follow a weekly repayment schedule. All repayments and fresh disbursements happen during the centre meeting, which is held every week at every center. Our loans are given for a period of 50 weeks.

B&E: What kind of problems do you face while repayment of loans?
MR: SKS enjoys a very strong repayment record and our NPAs are negligible. If a member is unable to repay an instalment, the other members in the group/center share the responsibility for the repayment. The few cases of defaults are usually due to migration or due to some natural calamity.

B&E: What are the rates of interest charged by SKS?
MR: SKS works in 19 states. In Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa, we charge a flat rate of interest at 12.5% and in rest of the states, the flat rate is set at 15% currently. In the newer states where we have started, our rates are a little higher at 15% flat and 26% diminishing. We also charge a loan cover fee of 1% that helps us offer insurance for the loan period.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, September 03, 2012

RONNIE SCREWVALA, CEO & FOUNDER, UTV GROUP

B&E: Yours is one of the first listed film companies of India. How did that change UTV’s growth radar?
RS: More importantly, we were one of the first ones that attracted private equity in media in India. It was a given that if we brought the private equity at some stage, we would need to list the company. It was just a consequential event; it was not any turning point.

B&E: The conglomerate decided against distributing dividends in the last financial year. Why was that? What is the expectation this time around?
RS: I do not think that media companies have an ordained plan of distributing dividends and dividend is never a high priority. We are not a government company and we are not a company with 70 years in the business. We are a high growth media company that constantly reinvests it’s profitability in other high growth ventures. So our shareholder returns are based on share value and not dividend. Microsoft did not give any dividends for 23 years of its existence...I don’t think they have a bad track record because of that. You need to be in a really placid water or calm water to be a dividend paying company... LIC and GIC give dividends. Companies are not judged on dividends today. Pfizer and other pharma companies with $40 billion or $70 billion revenues, and a stable income with a 3% growth, need to feel that they have to pay dividends because they do not have shareholder growth in value which goes up by 20% or 30% each year. It goes up by 2 or 3%.

B&E: Where do you think your competitors have beaten you?
RS: I believe everyone must look at the Media and Entertainment business as anything but competitive. We really do not spend too much time on a competitive landscape; not because we do not believe that there are people doing different things, it is actually because we are busy analysing how we can grow in the market. Right now, a lot of people are doing a lot of different things, which is going to help the industry. So if there is a youth channel and there are three competitive youth channels, the youth genre has to go up; that is more important than figuring out who is comparing with whom. We are doing 12 movies out of 200 movies that are being made, I can’t go around making 200 movies anyway; somebody is going to make the rest of the movies. So that is not competition.

B&E: What are those strategic mistakes you’ve made in the past that were critical?
RS: Tonnes of them. On a learning curve basis, there would be three in a day. If there were less than that means we are not experimenting, we are not being aggressive...we are not pushing the envelope hard....we are not being adventurous. The pace at which you grow and your ability to take risks is measured by the number of mistakes you make.

B&E: There would be some that you would like to tell us...
RS: I think we missed the first cycle of broadcasting of 1992-95 because we were too busy with the content space. I think we got into the home shopping business way before its time. The infrastructure was very low, credit card penetration was slow and people were not in touch with the field products. The third is probably diversifying into South-east Asian markets in Singapore and Malaysia. The markets were so small and so insular that it was not worth our time and effort.



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Saturday, September 01, 2012

The public sector behemoth SBI

Last year’s slowdown was a blessing in disguise for the public sector behemoth SBI, forcing it to become truly competitive. And the bank has only moved ahead since then. Avneesh Singh finds out how

No doubt, the cost to income ratio of SBI has increased to 52.59% as on March 31, 2010 from 46.62% as on March 31, 2009, but then, the majority of it has been due to higher operating expenses incurred on branch and ATM expansion, recruitment of new employees, et al. “It’s true that our employee cost has gone up during the last fiscal, but it was because of the fact that we were hiring when others were firing,” Bhattacharya tells B&E.

Nevertheless, thanks to some well thought out strategies and the sustained bull run, SBI has become one of the highest value creators among PSUs in recent times. The market capitalisation of SBI zoomed from `155.32 billion in Jan. 2005 to `1.76 trillion in Sep. 2010, an astounding increase of 1,035%. This, along with the proposed merger with its subsidiaries (merger with State Bank of Indore has already been approved by the government), has put SBI in a perfect position to challenge the mights of global banking giants.

Further, while evaluating the performance of SBI, one has to factor in the fact that the bank had always worked with his one hand tied behind its back due to political compulsions. Still, it has managed to change its culture and financial performance. And, as the government has said so often, SBI is certainly working for the common man.


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Thursday, August 30, 2012

“WE MADE A MISTAKE IN READING THE MARKET...”

Maruti’s market share and stock price has taken a beating in the recent past; blame competition for it. Shinzo Nakanishi, MD, Maruti Suzuki India, explains the comeback plan of the company to B&E.

B&E: The company’s market share has fallen below 50% for the first time in its 25 year-old history. Did you go wrong somewhere in reading the market?
Shinzo Nakanishi (SN): It is our aim that by the end of this fiscal, we will capture over 50% of the domestic passenger car market in India. Apart from the recently launched Alto K10, the company has also introduced five CNG models in its portfolio and the automatic A-Star, which will bring in additional volumes. We expected the market to grow at a rate of 12-15% over the past year, but it has grown by 30%. While we were selling almost all our models in the domestic market, the boom in the industry came as a boon for auto majors who had idle capacity. We made a mistake in reading the market growth.

B&E: The royalty payments that Maruti made to Suzuki for the first quarter of FY2010-11 is considered a big party spoiler. Do you believe that the level of royalty will go up in quarters to follow, from the current rate of 5.1%?
SN: I don’t think so. The amount of royalty will stay around the same level in the coming quarters as well. However, as the dependence of Maruti on Suzuki as far as its technology and brands are concerned is very high, it is difficult to lower it.
 

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Picture perfect?

Image is to the mind what perception is to the soul. Have movie-makers ended up distorting both in an attempt to deliver ‘happy’ stories?

You’ve got mail. Every time these words appeared on Kathleen Kelly’s computer screen, she got butterflies in her stomach in anticipation of the words (from her mysterious friend) that lay unread in that mail. But this together with the background song ‘You’re a Dream to me’ often leaves the audience with the same feeling too, especially those who thrive on sweet nothings! Whether it is the perfectly-directed chemistry of love and companionship between Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in movies like You’ve Got Mail and When Harry met Sally or the extremely optimistic plot performed to perfection by Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in flicks like Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, romantic Hollywood flicks leave many mesmerised and hopeful (rather adamant) of true (rather perfect) love in their lives too. A recent Australian survey released by Warner Home Video backs this observation. Almost half of the respondents blamed the ‘inevitable happy endings’ of rom-coms to have ‘ruined their view of an ideal relationship.’

Well, with this research, let’s not assume that the Australians are extra-soppy! Hollywood and Bollywood (largely) have immensely influenced Indian minds and hearts too. “The image of a good relationship in the minds of most of the couples I meet stems from Hindi films. The influence is so deep that subconsciously the expectations from each other are from the perfect relationship portrayed in movies like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ). In fact, many girls look for the boyish charm of Shahrukh Khan (of DDLJ) in their partner and I often end up telling them how Shahrukh in reality must not be like that all the time! In the beginning of the relationship, all is hunky-dory but as monotony sets in, (which is absolutely normal) people tend to overreact since the ‘perfect picture’ starts to dissolve,” says Dr. Nisha Khurana, a Delhi based Marriage Counselor.



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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

A mysterious and fascinating set of islands lie in the Bay of Bengal, ready to give your most adventurous imagination wings…

The people of Andaman, or to be more precise the tribes of Andaman, are the most mysterious element of the culture and history of the place. Precisely because little is known about them and their nature and way of life varies from one island to another. There are about 12 such tribal units, among them the major ones being the Jarawas, Shompen, Nicobarese, The Great Andmanis, The Little Andamanis, The Onges and the Sentinelese.

The origins of these tribes have been difficult to establish, although the most accepted theory remains that the Negritos made their way into the islands from the east in Burma. The Jarawas were the tribe that I had a glimpse of while on a bus to Baratang. I was told immediately that it was a matter of extreme fortune that I managed to see a tribal ‘live’ and not in a painting in the museum. Apparently, most of the tribes remain notoriously elusive and cut-off from civilisation. The Jarawas, who inhabit middle Andaman and South Andaman, are of Negroid origin and are mostly hunters and foragers. On the Nicobar Island live the Nicobarese, of mongoloid origin, and as legend would have it, they are descendants of an exiled Burmese prince.

This tribe is the most advanced of the lot in the sense that they use modern agricultural and animal rearing methods unlike the other tribes, where the people are mostly hunters and foragers. Then there are the Onges, who live on the Little Andaman and Rutland Islands. Part of the Nicobarese, the Shompen (about 200 of them remain today) live on the Great Nicobar islands.

The Sentinelese are reportedly the fiercest and most evasive of the lot and inhabit the Sentinel Islands. Most of these tribes have little or no contact with the settlers in the island except for the Nicobarese.

Despite the isolation, the aborigines’ right to their resources and way of life has increasingly been under threat for the past few decades, as the influx of settlers has passed on diseases, increased deforestation, and cut-off access to resources (like the Andaman Trunk Road that runs through the Andaman Island that has limited the Jarawas reach into fresh hunting grounds) and posed a threat to these rare communities.

Ultimately, Andaman is about islands. Whether it be the Barren Island, home to the only active volcano in India or Ross Island, once the seat of British power and now a collection of ruins ravaged by time and serving as a grim reminder of how the mighty can fall, every island tells its own story. That is what the essence of these islands is about – fascinating tales and stories. Some are well documented, some perhaps figments of some creative guy’s imagination. But as you look around and explore, you also get to fill up some of the blanks with your own imagination. 


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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

India’s Biggest Wealth Creators Wealth creation beyond market capitalisation

With exclusive interviews and incisive insights, B&E brings the electrifying annual listing of India’s top’ wealth creators during the financial year 2009-2010; companies that gave the largest rise in market capitalisation for their shareholders! By Deepak Ranjan Patra

Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.
Sun Tzu c. 490 BC, Chinese military strategist

In this post-recession era, Sun Tzu’s strategy holds a lot more value for all the right logic. Gone are the days when some corporate house could make a grandiose announcement, hype over it through scrappily sassy PR and see investors falling hook, line and sinker for the same, raising their bids for the company’s stocks, which ultimately would end up increasing the company’s market cap to unparalleled highs. There is one critical reason this change occurred. While in the 1980s the biggest participants in the stock investor community were government financial institutions (led by star-eyed bureaucrats who couldn’t understand why pound sterlings were represented as GBP), from the mid 1990s into this decade, the massive majority of investors became what came to be known as FIIs – the brazenly cheeky, impudently crusty, Goldmansquely audacious Foreign Institutional Investors! FIIs came armed with supremely qualified analytical tools that looked through ostentatious corporate window dressing and ensured that market dynamics were driven less by company spiel. So did it mean that finally fundamentals started driving market capitalisations? Baloney! It only meant that FIIs used all technical skulduggery allowed in the trade (including high frequency trading) to book profits, while the common ‘long term’ investor would simply keep waiting – almost moronically – for dividend payouts.

But then, if stock markets are still moving nonsensically without correlation with fundamental strengths of the companies, what in heavens is the justification for this besotted and daffy global infatuation with market capitalisation, where CEOs are recruited and thrown out not on the basis of operational parameters (like sales, cash flows, even profits!) but on the basis of how much they’ve added to the stock market price? For this, you’ll have to go back 40 years, to the year 1970, when an eccentric Einsteinish professor of the University of Chicago – who used to write weekly Newsweek columns – raked up a controversy by saying that any organisation should have only one social objective – increasing financial returns for shareholders! His papers on monetary economics made so much sense that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1976. The corporate world finally came around to accept en masse the primary position of the shareholders’ wealth maximisation postulate – and has never changed since! The iconic Milton Friedman passed away on November 16, 2006, but left a legacy that will live its full cycle through the capitalist era.

Enough said, and enough proven. Now, the winners in absolute market capitalization increase on Indian bourses for the financial year 2009-2010...

B&E Hall of Fame: Synopsis

The table of those who performed at the bourses during the year is led by none other that Reliance Industries (RIL). Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai Indians might have lost to India Cements (Deccan Chargers) in the IPL3 final, but his company paid back the compliment exponentially. RIL’s market cap jumped 44% or nearly Rs.1.09 trillion (total-float) to beat its India counterparts in terms of absolute rise in market cap. It was closely followed by Tata Consultancy Services (Rs.1.04 trillion) and the public sector mining giant, MMTC, which added Rs.87.7 billion to its value. Meanwhile, if one were to compare these figures with international representations, the scenario in the US market was worth watching as a number of financial giants, which were written off in 2008, rose from the dust. The list of top 10 US wealth creators included as many as four financial services companies including Citigroup, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase, apart from Bank of America (BoA). BoA added $132 billion to its market valuation, while Apple gained $114 billion.

A Commentary on Domestic Fundamental Growth

By all means, there is no dearth of skills to create wealth in Mukesh Ambani’s camp. And it’s absolutely not surprising that Reliance Industries has once again emerged as B&E’s biggest wealth creator for the financial year 2009-10. Between April 1, 2009 and April 1, 2010, the company’s market cap witnessed a sustained growth from Rs.2.48 trillion to Rs.3.57 trillion. But does this give a true picture? One look at the company’s ‘fundamentals’ and dear Milton would be damned. While we are talking about the company’s growth in terms of market cap, RIL’s profit during last fiscal has grown by a paltry 3.83% to Rs.162.36 billion from Rs.156.37 billion for the previous year. And the year before that had been another dismal performance (2.46% bottom-line growth). The value of the company’s depreciation has more than doubled in the last fiscal to Rs.104 billion from Rs.52 billion a year before. An analyst from Motilal Oswal Securities tells B&E, “Soaring demand and increased activity level in the oil and gas domain have forced a faster depletion in RIL’s reserves; depreciation during the quarter exceeded our estimate, spiking 134.6% year-on-year on account of the additional depreciation of the SEZ refinery and KG-basin gas facility, resulting a drop in its net profit.”

And if you thought market hype was the reason stock prices were going up, one has to mention that despite credible news about new discoveries, the company has provided very little guidance about the exploration/development plans with regard to many of its key blocks like NEC-25. Add to all that the fact that the company’s Gross Refining Margin dropped from $9.9/bbl to $7.5/bbl [bbl: oil barrel] in the last quarter of FY’10, when the same for other Asian refiners it grew very handsomely – and it become quite clear that even the largest wealth creator has no respect for straightforward seat-of-the-pants profit versus m-cap correlations. And RIL’s stock is still marching ahead at the bourses garnering brilliantly high m-cap figures.


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Monday, August 13, 2012

Lessons from the past

The rotational chief minister system was experimented with by the BJP and the BSP in 1998 in Uttar Pradesh where a deal was stuck under which Mayawati was to be chief minister for the first six months of the coalition government following which the BJP’s chief minster nominate would have taken over. BJP got the posts of deputy chief minister and leader and deputy chairman of the Legislative Council. However, merely 28 days after her six months got over and Kalyan Singh became the CM, Mayawati did a volte face and withdrew support.

When the Congress and PDP formed a coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir after the 2002 elections, they had decided to share the post of the chief minister for three years each. They had shared power accordingly starting with PDP chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed at the helm. The transfer of power was smooth and Ghulam Nabi Azad took over after three years. However, the PDP never came to terms with the reality and a section of it never actually wanted Azad. In short, they were looking for an opportunity to withdraw support. 


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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Budget backlash

The fuel price hike announced by the Finance Minister has galvanised the Opposition to close ranks in a rare show of unity. But will the sound and fury translate into long-term political gains? Pramod Kumar reports

In the final Cabinet meeting prior to the presentation of the Union Budget this year, three important financial decisions were taken. As the meeting drew to a close, the Petroleum Minister made a request for a hike in fuel prices. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee assured him that some steps had already been taken through the excise duty channel. But agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and railway minister Mamata Banerjee warned that a fuel price hike would fan anger against the government and adversely affect the prospects of the UPA in Assembly Elections scheduled for the coming months.

Mukherjee replied that not hiking fuel prices would adversely affect the pace of pro-people projects. So the allies advocated a ‘wait and watch’ policy: increase the prices of petrol and diesel and then gauge the popular reaction; if things threaten to snowball, get the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to intervene and order a partial rollback. It was also suggested that the time-lag between the hike and the eventual rollback could be utilised to lessen the oil pool deficit. In that scenario, the Congress would have its cake and eat it too, it was pointed out.

But the fuel price hike triggered something that the Congress had not bargained for: new-found unity in the Opposition ranks which had for months been in disarray. In fact, a few parties that support UPA from outside have also thrown their weight behind the hue and cry raised by the Opposition. By protesting both inside and outside the ring, the two Yadav satraps — Lalu and Mulayam — have made it amply clear that they might even withdraw their unilateral support to the UPA on the issue of price rise. Political pundits, however, feel that this will not affect the UPA as it enjoys a comfortable majority.

The problem is that this approach by the allies has found resonance in the Congress itself. Some elements in the ruling party are not convinced with the logic trotted out for raising the petroleum prices through the Budget. Party leader Digvijay Singh has already expressed his reservations on the issue. Similarly, there is unease among the youth brigade too. In fact, the son of petroleum minister Murli Deora, Milind Deora, has openly come out against the decision. And he minced no words. He went as far as to write letters to both Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh seeking their intervention.

Congress strategists believe that such a step was necessary to correct certain financial misadventures of UPA-1. They claim the priority for the current regime is to strengthen the economy. Prior to the Budget, Mukherjee had clearly explained all the tough measures and had assured the Cabinet committee that although these measures would hurt momentarily, they would lead to long-term benefits. They would help put the economy back on track following the recession. He put forth the same explanation in the aforementioned Cabinet meeting too.

While Trinamool Congress and DMK had bought the logic then, they came out openly against the decision once the recommendations were implemented. They were in favour of reduction of service tax and excise duty. The fuel price hike will affect their two core groups, farmers and the middle class. While the former will be affected by the rise in the price of diesel, the increase in transportation costs will hit the latter. Transportation cost escalation might fuel a further rise in the prices of essential commodities.

Talking to B&E, Trinamool leader Dinesh Trivedi said that while the Railway Minister kept diesel transportation out of the ambit of service tax, the Finance Minister failed to do his bit. This, according to Trivedi, was not in accordance with the sentiments of the allies.

The same goes for DMK, whose leader and Tamil Nadu CM M. Karunanidhi shot a letter to the PM merely three hours after the Budget was presented. A. Raja, Union Communications Minister, wasted no time in personally delivering it to the PMO. DMK is peeved as it could find itself on sticky ground in the Assembly elections due next year. However, sources claim that there is another reason behind this response. The PMO is apparently not happy with M.K. Alagiri and the way he runs his ministry. He has been told so in as many words by the PMO, but he has refused to mend his ways. DMK is now using this issue to settle scores and ensure that Alagiri remains a part of the ministry.

This was also the first time in India‘s parliamentary history that the entire Opposition staged a walkout in the middle of the Budget presentation. There were two flanks that were particularly active. The command of the UPA allies was with Mulayam Singh while the united Opposition was spearheaded by leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj. Swaraj had called a joint meeting of the Opposition in the office of the BJP Parliamentary Party prior to the Budget session. All matters related to floor coordination were discussed there. It was decided how, and when, the Opposition would corner the government over the price rise issue. It was also decided that some Opposition parties such as JD(U) would raise the matter of corruption and then the entire Opposition would walk out of the House.




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