Research

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. On June 14, 2019, Tech Mahindra joined the ranks of Tata Global Beverages, Ambuja Cement and Dr Reddy’s in appointing Shikha Sharma as an independent director. Private equity firm KKR had also appointed Sharma as an adviser for their alternative investments. The irony of publicly-owned and listed...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. In a stunning rebuke to audit firm S.R. Batliboi (SRB), a member firm of Ernst & Young, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) barred the firm from taking any bank audit for 1 year commencing from April 1, 2019. The public humiliation of a leading audit firm...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. While the market is commending banks like ICICI and Axis Bank for cleaning up their balance sheets with aggressive loan loss provisions, what is being ignored is the role played by net deferred tax assets (DTA) in partly neutralising the impact of the provisions. DTA is being...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Indusind Bank not only declared 4QFY2019 results far below consensus expectations, but FY2019 net profits have been inflated by a significant increase in net deferred tax asset (DTA). As usual, the business media and sell-side analysts have ignored the significance of the rise in DTA in inflating...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Yes Bank’s loss in 4QFY19 would have been much higher, by Rs 16.6 bn, and its annual profit significantly lower, had it not been for the increase in the net deferred tax asset (DTA) of the same amount. The huge increase in the DTA partly offset the...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. All indicators point to a disturbing slowdown in India’s economy in recent months: the Index of Industrial Production, the Purchasing Managers’ Index, the fixed investment rate, and even GDP. Farm prices have collapsed, resulting in negative growth in value added in agriculture; real rural wages have slumped;...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. An internal memo of an anonymous former senior official of ICICI Bank’s risk management department, publicised by the Indian Express, provides a damning indictment of the credit appraisal and monitoring processes at the bank. It reveals how basic banking processes were violated, and public and shareholder funds...

The pitifully situation in sell-side research is on account of their inability to publicly question or even condemn the management of the companies they cover and expose accounting fraud, mismanagement and mis-governance.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Post the announcement of HDFC Bank’s results, the sell-side rejoiced and the overwhelming majority reaffirmed their bullish stance on the stock, which has handsomely rewarded shareholders in its quarter century of existence. The perennially bullish sell-side has been disregarding the cautions of Daniel Tabbush, one of...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Romesh Sobti, the CEO of Indusind Bank, was recently crowned ‘banker of the year’ by a fawning business media, despite reporting two consecutive years of fudged accounts (FY2016 and FY2017) and putting nearly 8% of the bank’s capital at risk in an ill-advised, unsecured loan to...