Page 12 - Banking Fiannce March 2018

ROUNDUP

Book profit above Rs. Merger procedures streamlined
1,000 crores - EPFO SEBI has eased the norms and requirements related to disclosures, lock in shares
by promoters and listing compliances in relation to
The Employees' Provident Fund Orga- schemes of arrangements like mergers and demergers.
nization (EPFO) The move is aimed at expediting the process of draft
booked a profit schemes.
of over Rs.1000
crore by selling The listed entities are no longer required to submit cer-
some of its equity tain documents to the stock exchanges following the sanction of the scheme by
investments in order to maintain the the High Court or National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Whereas, the SEBI
interest rate at 8.65%. had revised transaction charges on commodity derivatives trade.
10% gains in foreign brokerage Seek- Centre to protect public deposits
ing a rebound in corporate earnings Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently mentioned that the Centre will fully pro-
growth and economic recovery, it tect public deposits in financial institutions while hint-
can be forecasted that there would
ing at openness to changes in the proposed Financial
be 10% gain in forein brokerages.
Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill. Jaitley
The "positivity is premised on the said the Centre's Rs. 2.11 lakh crore capital infusion
return of economic and earnings plan in banks was to strengthen banks and there was
growth", said Abhay Laijawala, head
no question of any lender failing. If any such situation arises, the Centre will
of equity research, Deutsche Bank's "fully protect" the deposits made by customers, Jaitley said, adding "the gov-
India unit.
ernment is very clear about it".
Patanjali to convert into Govt plans to soften CG tax blow
a non-profit organisation The government indicated that indexation may be allowed to reduce the capi-
Patanjali Ayurved has initiated the tal gains blow on shares and equity mutual funds in the
process to future to align it with norms for other sectors such as
convert into property. The indexation benefit even with a 20% tax,
a non profit instead of the concessional 10% proposed in the bud-
organisation. get, will result in savings and will especially benefit
The com- those who stay invested for long periods.
pany had "Like in the case of immovable property, we have indexation benefit but the
also announced plans for a big online holding period is two years and the rate is 20%. We must move in that direction
push, inking agreements with lead- for all classes of assets. Since it was one year only, we didn't want to give ben-
ing e-commerce companies, an- efit of indexation," said finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia.
nouncing its partnerships with
BigBasket, Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm Rise in CSR spends in India
Mall, Shopclues, Grofers, netmeds The Companies in India are becoming more socially responsible with the cumu-
and 1mg. lative CSR spending by the 100 companies under review
"We are working on various legalities increased to Rs 7,215.9 crore in the current financial
year, up from 41 per cent in the past three years, says
to convert Patanjali Ayurved into a
a survey. Consulting firm KPMG in its survey pointed out
non-profit company. Currently it op-
erates as a limited company. We are that over 22 companies have committed a higher cor-
doing this to ensure that all the prof- porate social responsibility (CSR) budget outlay in finan-
cial year 2017-18, compared with 10 in 2014-15. The number of companies that
its of the company are used com-
have spent less than the prescribed 2-per cent CSR budget has also substan-
pletely for charity," said Baba
Ramdev. tially come down by 29 per cent. However, 58 companies spent 2 per cent or
more, against only 32 companies during 2014-15.

12 | 2018 | MARCH | BANKING FINANCE