businessfortnight

In June, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had declared a target of doubling the national transporter’s revenue to Rs 4 lakh crore by 2025. One of the ways he hopes to achieve that is by enhancing freight capacity since it already accounts for 65 per cent of its total revenues. In fact, the buzz is that the Indian Railways wants to increase its share of total freight movement from 33 per cent to 45 per cent. No wonder it is now looking beyond the 3,300-km long eastern and western freight corridors currently being constructed. Railways may invest Rs 44,000 crore on West Bengal-Andhra Pradesh freight corridor According to The Economic Times, the Indian Railways plans to invest Rs 44,000 crore to build a 1,100-km greenfield freight corridor along the country’s east coast to connect Kharagpur in West Bengal with Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh. In other words, this proposed corridor – likely to be announced in the budget proposal for 2019-20 – will link up the mineral-rich areas of the country wi

New Delhi:  Harley-Davidson, Inc. plans to launch motorcycles in the small and mid-sized segment as it unveiled a major change in its strategy to target young buyers in emerging markets such as India and China. Harley-Davidson gears up to take on Royal Enfield The US-based company, famed for its big bikes, also plans to forge a strategic alliance with another motorcycle maker to develop and sell these motorcycles in these markets, Harley-Davidson said on Monday. Harley’s planned entry into the market for small and mid-capacity motorcycles is aimed at expanding its customer base and to drive growth in India, one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets, as well as other Asian markets. “The bold actions we are announcing today leverage Harley-Davidson’s vast capabilities and competitive firepower—our excellence in product development and manufacturing, the global appeal of the brand and of course, our great dealer network,” said Matt Levatich, president and chief executive off

Recently, SEBI has come out with a consultation paper titled “Designing a Framework for Enhanced Market Borrowings by large Corporates”. It is a nudge to corporates to access the bond market rather than rely only on bank funding. It says companies with more than Rs 100 crore in long-term borrowing should raise 25 percent or more of their funds through bond issuance. The objective is, the companies will have a wider funding base, there will be scrutiny by more entities than just lending banks and with more instruments on offer, it will deepen the bond market. Advantages from a broad perspective A delay of even a single day in honouring interest servicing means default tag on the bond and downgrade in credit rating. After a downgrade of credit rating, due to any delay in coupon payment, while it is theoretically possible to come back to the earlier credit rating, it is not easy, and it is time consuming as the default tag stays forever. Things are relatively easier in case of bank loans

New Delhi:  Old train coaches which were discarded and auctioned as scrap earlier could soon be converted into theme-based restaurants. If everything goes according to plan, then such train-theme restaurants will come up all over the country in the next few years. The Railway Board wants to generate more revenue and provide employment with such stylish food outlets. Railways has been operating rail museums and heritage parks in different parts of the country. Some of them receive substantial footfall. It is in these museums and parks that the Railway Board wants its zonal offices to set up the restaurants. PTI quoted a senior railway official as saying that the Railways might convert and refurbish its overage coaches into rail theme-based restaurants to cater to the general public. The Railways has already tasted success with the popularity of Shan-e-Bhopal, India’s first multi-cuisine rail-coach restaurant which attracts both tourists and locals for its unique ambience and delicacies

Delhi/Bengaluru:  Automobile industry body SIAM on Friday asked all stakeholders to resolve the ongoing transporters’ strike, saying it has severely impacted the sector in the last few days. The ongoing strike by truckers has disrupted production and sales of vehicles in the country, as well as exports, resulting in losses for carmakers, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) said today. SIAM calls for early resolution of transporters’ strike The SIAM said its members were facing “unprecedented crisis” as the strike was affecting the movement of vehicles and components supply. “Many of domestic consignments are held up on roads, which has disrupted the supply chain and completely derailed the production at assembly lines of some companies,” SIAM’s Deputy Director General Sugato Sen said in a statement. The All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC), an organisation of transporters that has organised the strike, is demanding a cut in federal and state levies on diesel by

New Delhi:  The expert panel which recommended a continuation of the ban on fixed dose combinations (FDCs) has found that many FDCs were formulated without due diligence, with dosing mismatches that could result in toxicity. Panel finds dosing mismatches in many FDCs The committee found that most pharma companies had not generated the “safety and efficacy data” of their own FDCs. After reviewing 349 fixed drug combinations (FDCs), the expert panel of the health ministry on Wednesday recommended that 343 of them be “prohibited” and the remaining six “restricted or regulated”. According to the experts, the pharma companies whose products were under scrutiny provided “irrelevant” data that relied on biased studies. “In FDCs where there is a dosing mismatch among the ingredients, FDC use would result in toxicity. An inability to adjust doses of individual ingredients is specially risky, if an ingredient has a narrow safety margin,” reads the executive summary of the report, reviewed by 

Shares of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories gained over a percent on Thursday morning as investors bet on the stock ahead of Q1 results. The numbers will be declared later in the day. The stock touched an intraday high of Rs 2,118.45 and an intraday low of Rs 2,075.60. The drug maker is likely to report a four-fold jump in the first quarter of FY19, led by low base of previous year, when sales were affected by the GST rollout. The company will also benefit with sales of US complex generic portfolio holding out despite pricing pressure and lack of major approvals. India business is expected to grow 30 percent YoY on a favourable base. In the first quarter of FY18, the company posted a profit of Rs 66.6 crore. A Reuters poll of analyst forecasts an increase in net profit to Rs 302.8 crore. It estimates revenue to rise 21.48 percent YoY to Rs 3946.8 crore in Q1FY19. HDFC Securities expects topline of Dr Reddy’s to grow 10 percent YoY. “With no big product launches in the US, Dr Reddy’s to report o