Tag: Pfizer

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SBI’s Net Profit Jumps 83% YoY to Rs 16,695cr in Q4 – Top Indian Market Updates

Here are some of the major updates that could move the markets tomorrow:

SBI Q4 Results: Net profit rises 83% YoY to Rs 16,695 crore

State Bank of India (SBI) reported an 83% YoY increase in standalone net profit to Rs 16,695 crore for the quarter ended March (Q4 FY23). Net Interest Income (NII) stood at Rs 40,393 crore, up 29% YoY. The gross non-performing assets (NPA) ratio fell from 3.14% in Q4 FY22 to 2.78% in Q4 FY23. The bank’s board has declared a dividend of Rs 11.3 per equity share.

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India’s coal production up 8.5% to 73 MT in April

According to the Ministry of Coal, India’s coal production increased by 8.5% to 73.14 million tonnes (MT) in April 2023, compared to 67.20 MT in April 2022. This accounted for 94.89% of the production target set for April 2023. Coal India and its subsidiaries contributed 57.57 MT to the overall production, marking a 7.67% growth from April 2022.

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ITC Q4 Results: Net profit rises 23% YoY to Rs 5,175 crore

ITC reported a 23% YoY increase in consolidated net profit to Rs 5,175 crore in Q4 FY23. Its operating revenue rose 7% YoY to Rs 19,058 crore during the same quarter. EBITDA stood at Rs 6,209 crore, up 18.9% YoY in Q4 FY23. The company’s board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 6.75 and a special dividend of Rs 2.75 per equity share.

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Zydus Lifesciences Q4 Results: Net profit falls 25% YoY to Rs 297 crore

Zydus Lifesciences reported a 25% YoY decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 296.6 crore in Q4 FY23. However, its consolidated total revenue rose 32% YoY to Rs 5,011 crore during the same quarter. EBITDA stood at Rs 1,257 crore, up 75% YoY. The company’s board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 6 per equity share.

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Vedanta to free up cash and raise funds as it nears $500 million bond maturity

According to a Bloomberg report, Vedanta Group seeks to raise funds and generate cash as its $500 million bond matures. The board of Vedanta Ltd. is considering a dividend payout, while the conglomerate is in talks with banks for a potential $500 million raise. Vedanta Resources Ltd. relies on funds from its subsidiaries to reduce debt after a failed zinc mining unit sale.

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Ramco Cements Q4 Results: Net profit rises 23% YoY to Rs 152 crore

Ramco Cements reported a 22.6% YoY increase in net profit to Rs 152 crore in Q4 FY23. Its revenue increased by 50.2% YoY to Rs 2,568 crore during the same quarter. EBITDA stood at Rs 412 crore, up 39.5% YoY in Q4. 

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Paytm partners with NPCI to launch Paytm SBI Card on the RuPay network

One97 Communications Ltd’s Paytm has collaborated with NPCI and SBI Card to launch the Paytm SBI Card on the RuPay network. Customers who join will receive privileges worth up to Rs 75,000, including a complimentary Paytm First Membership with OTT platform access and flight ticket discounts through the Paytm app. Cardholders also get other cashback offers on various transactions.

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Godrej Agrovet and SBI launch finance offering for oil palm farmers

Godrej Agrovet’s Oil Palm Business has collaborated with SBI to launch a finance offering for oil palm farmers. The product aims to support farmers by providing loans for setting up micro-irrigation facilities, implementing fencing arrangements for protection against cattle grazing, and improving tube wells on their oil palm farms. This initiative aims to enhance Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) productivity, acting as a catalyst for oil palm growth.

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GAIL shuts Ratnagiri LNG terminal till September, cuts imports

GAIL (India) Ltd has temporarily halted LNG imports at its Ratnagiri plant in Maharashtra since mid-May. The facility is shut down annually during the monsoon season due to operational challenges caused by rain and high tides. A breakwater is currently under construction and is expected to be completed next year, eliminating the need for seasonal shutdowns. GAIL’s last LNG cargo was received on May 11 at the Dabhol port.

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Oriana Power commissions 2.7 MW solar project at IOCL refinery in Haryana

Oriana Power has successfully commissioned a 2.7 MW solar project at the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL) refinery in Panipat, Haryana. The project was completed within a record time of three months and is specifically for Indian Synthetic Rubber Private Ltd (ISRPL), a joint venture between IOCL and Trimurti Holding Corporation. This marks the successful establishment of a single rooftop solar power plant at the IOCL refinery.

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Pfizer suspends sale of some popular products due to technical issues

Pfizer Ltd has halted the sale and use of its bacterial infection products in India due to technical issues at a contract manufacturing site. The company has requested a temporary suspension of Magzex, Zosyn, Magnamycin injections, and Magnex forte supplies. Stockists and distributors have been instructed to refrain from selling, distributing, or using the products until further notice from Pfizer.

Read more here.

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Editorial

Can Snowman Logistics Turn Around From Losses?

Snowman Logistics is India’s first cold supply chain company with a nationwide network. It is also India’s leading integrated temperature-controlled logistics company. It was incorporated by Amalgam Foods Limited in 1993. They have more than 25 years of experience in serving their client’s needs related to cold storage, warehouse and transportation. Their rich list of clients includes Bharat Biotech, Walmart, Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Mother Dairy, ITC and others.

Why are we talking about Snowman again?

With the exponential rise in Covid-19 cases across India, the need for vaccination has increased massively. Many reports claim that India might look to entertain foreign vaccines as well. One of the vaccines which are used in many countries and have proven to be effective is Pfizer. 

But, the Pfizer vaccine has some limitations due to its vulnerable handling and storage. A very cold atmosphere is required to keep the vaccine safe. That means cold refrigerators have to be deployed for storing these vaccines as well as the same low temperature is required to transport it from one place to another. Logistics has been a huge challenge for the Indian government till now.

If Pfizer is allowed to sell its vaccines in India, the government might have to call companies like Snowman Logistics to help in the domain of logistics. There is not a surety on this and we are not making any claims but the possibilities of this happening are still big. We covered Snowman Logistics in-depth in December when its stock price doubled after getting associated with the Pfizer vaccine for the first time.

Financial Overview of FY21

In the fourth quarter of this year, Snowman Logistics declared a total revenue of Rs 65.11. Their net loss in this quarter was calculated to be Rs 0.42 crore. This was much better than the loss of Rs 1.17 crore reported in Q4 FY20.

Total revenue for FY21 declined slightly to reach Rs 240.57 crore from Rs 243.39 crore. In the same yearly period, Snowman declared a net profit of Rs 0.06 crore against a net loss of Rs 15.01 crore reported in FY20. This slight drop in their revenue can be attributed to the lockdown imposed in March 2020. The non-essential vehicle movement was restricted for a few weeks at that time.

On the positive side, their warehousing department has seen a considerable improvement in margin from 38% to 42%. Total revenues from the warehousing segment increased by more than 5% in FY21 as compared to FY20. At the same time, revenues from the transportation services dropped by 10% which decreased the total revenue as mentioned above.

How will Snowman benefit?

Snowman Logistics launched a tech platform called ‘Snowlink’ to push refrigerated transport fleets across the country. With increasing transportation capacity, it will also aim to offer end-to-end solutions to customers. In the last four months, they have increased their area of coverage to 16 cities. Amidst the time of the pandemic, Snowman has created a new pharma vertical. 

This new vertical will handle the distribution of COVID vaccines in some regions. They also plan to provide Pan-India storage and distribution but have to wait for the necessary approvals from various authorities. The company claims to be well-positioned for the mass distribution of the covid vaccine. Also, they are focussing on expanding in high yield locations to generate more sales across the nation.

According to the company’s CEO, Snowman is already operating at 85% capacity utilization and has a further 15% capacity available for vaccine transportation. He further adds that Vaccine transportation will increase at a rapid pace as the government has opened the vaccines for everyone above age 18. Thus, their business can increase massively starting this May. Any noticeable change in revenues and profits will be displayed in the next quarterly results.

Do let us know in the comments section of the marketfeed application. What is your opinion on Snowman Logistics? Are you also keenly tracking what is going around the company and its business? 

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Editorial

The Pfizer Vaccine – All You Need to Know

A major announcement from the United States on November 9 has completely lifted our hopes and spirits! Since March, scientists around the world have been working tirelessly towards creating an effective vaccine against the novel coronavirus. And now, drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech have come out with a very positive result. The vaccine developed by the two companies was found to be 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 infections in ongoing Phase-3 trials.

We saw that the announcement made a ripple effect across the world, with the stock markets reaching new highs. Let us dive deep into the details of the vaccine, and recent developments surrounding it.

  1. Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Trials
  2. What Happened After the Announcement?
  3. Will the Vaccine be Available in India?
  4. Will a Vaccine Solve All Our Problems?

Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine Trials

US-based Pfizer Inc and Germany-based biotechnology firm BioNTech had begun their collaboration in March 2020. Their partnership is aimed at co-developing and distributing a potential Covid-19 vaccine. Here are some important facts about the recent Phase-3 trials of the potential vaccine:

  1. The Phase-3 trials of the vaccine involved 44,000 participants in six countries. Half of them were administered with the vaccine, and the other half were given a placebo- a pill with no effect (like a sugar pill). A participant would not know if he got the vaccine or the placebo, thus helping to analyse the psychological effects.
  1. As per Pfizer’s interim analysis, the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 in participants who had no prior history of a SARS Cov-2 infection. However, Pfizer had not disclosed how many participants from the total number were used to formulate this interim analysis. In this sample, it is not clear how many had received the vaccine, and how many had received the placebo.
  1. Pfizer has stated that protection against the virus is achieved 28 days after the injection of the vaccine.
  1. The announcement made on November 9 offers the first compelling evidence that a vaccine can prevent Covid-19. Pfizer’s report from Phase-3 trials is being welcomed by other scientists around the world. It also puts Pfizer-BioNtech ahead of the other vaccine makers.
  1. Pfizer is planning to approach the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for emergency authorization of the vaccine later this month. Meanwhile, the Phase-3 trials will continue until there are 164 Covid-19 cases among the volunteers. This final analysis will confirm the actual percentage of effectiveness of the vaccine.
  1. An important factor to be noted is that experts in the field are yet to receive an answer on how much protection the vaccine offers, and for how long it would last. So, we can say that this announcement is being taken with “cautious optimism”.

What Happened After the Announcement?

Ever since Pfizer made the statement on Nov 9, we can see that important decisions are being taken at a very rapid pace. According to a statement from Pfizer, the company has plans to globally produce up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020, and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.

Reports have also stated that many countries have already made deals with the drugmaker and have plans to hoard the vaccine. The US Government has signed a $1.95 billion (~Rs 14,474 crore) deal with Pfizer to buy 100 million doses. According to Alex Azar, the US Health Secretary, their government would begin vaccinating Americans in December. This is only possible if Pfizer submits the initial positive data from its vaccine trials to the USFDA, as soon as possible.

On the day of the announcement, Pfizer CEO Albert Bouria made a very calculated move. As per a regulatory filing, 1,32,508 Pfizer shares were sold by the CEO at a price of $42 per share. This means that he had sold $5.6 million of his shares in the company. This has raised many eyebrows as almost 62% of his entire stock in the company was sold right at the peak. Several questions have also been raised regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine after this high profile stake sale.

Will the Vaccine be Available in India?

Our Indian Government is now in discussions with Pfizer to make the vaccine available in our country. So far, the American firm does not have a distribution pact with any Indian company. It has been reported that India would soon sign an agreement with the US drugmaker. However, India has some significant hurdles to overcome to ensure that we can obtain Pfizer’s vaccine.

In a statement made on November 10, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the Managing Director of Biocon, stated that the Pfizer vaccine is unlikely to make its way to India. The reason that she had put forth was that the vaccine requires an ultra-cold chain of minus 70 degrees. This means that the vaccine has to be stored and transported in an ultra-cold facility. Currently, India does not have the necessary logistical support to conduct such a highly specialized task. The cost of the vaccine in India may also become very high due to this reason.

Around the same time, we had also received some positive statements from Snowman Logistics. The company has found an opportunity to improve its business, by creating a super-cold storage facility for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. Sunil Nair, the CEO of Snowman Logistics, has stated that they will come up with a technology to address these requirements. On November 10, the share price of Snowman Logistics saw a surge of 14% in an intraday movement to Rs 40.95. 

Last month, Apollo Hospitals had announced that they are ready to administer 10 lakh doses of the Covid-19 vaccine per day. Today, the company’s CEO, Sunita Reddy, has said that they have the cold storage chain ready for the Pfizer vaccine.

Will Vaccine Solve All Our Problems?

Scientists have yet again proved to become a worthy opponent in the fight against a deadly virus. We have finally received an amazing update from the vaccine makers. A very effective vaccine would hopefully be available all over the world soon. The news from Pfizer had also created a very positive sentiment around the global markets. We also saw our stock market indices reaching new highs.

Our Indian companies are also preparing to create a possible technology to store and transport the vaccine. All the issues caused by the Covid-19 pandemic would soon be countered. Although a vaccine would not immediately turn around the world economies, it gives hope that there will be a brighter future going ahead. As Indians and as human beings, in the face of a problem such as Covid, we will come back much stronger. The economic conditions could become more stable, and more importantly, things are finally looking very optimistic!

Let us look forward to the latest updates surrounding the vaccines, including many others from India and around the world. We must also be aware of how our country is planning to further gear up to make the vaccine available for all citizens. And as intelligent stock market participants, identify which all sectors will benefit from the announcement of a vaccine.

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Market News Top 10 News

Centre to Transfer Rs 6,000 crore as GST Compensation to 16 States – Top Indian Market News

Centre to transfer Rs 6,000 crore as GST compensation to 16 states

The Central Government will release Rs 6,000 crore to 16 states and 3 union territories on Monday. This amount will be the second round of back-to-back loans given to states/UTs to meet the shortfall in Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections. There was a major decline in GST collections earlier this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The total amount released to states is now at Rs 12,000 crore. 

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HDFC Q2 Results: Net Profit declines 28% YoY to Rs 2,870 crore

Housing Development Finance Corp Ltd. (HDFC) reported a 27.5% year-on-year (YoY) decline in net profit to Rs 2,870.12 crore, for the quarter ended September (Q2). The non-banking financial company reported a 20.7% YoY increase in net interest income (NII) to Rs 3,647 crore, during the same period. The share price of HDFC Bank saw a rise of 5.13%, and closed at Rs 2,022.30 on the NSE today.

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India’s manufacturing PMI rises for third straight month

Factory activity in India has expanded for the third straight month this year, as the removal of lockdown restrictions led to a surge in demand and output. The IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) has increased from 56.8 in September to 58.9 in October. PMI is a month-on-month calculation, and a value of more than 50 represents an expansion when compared to the previous month.

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NTPC announces Q2 results and share buyback plan

The National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd. (NTPC) reported a 7.43% year-on-year (YoY) increase in standalone net profit to Rs 3,504 crore, for the quarter ended September (Q2). The company’s revenue from operations was up by 8.4% YoY to Rs 24,677 crore, during the same period. The Board of Directors of NTPC has approved a buyback of 19.78 crore equity shares at Rs 115 per share.

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Zee Entertainment Q2 Results: Net Profit declines 77% YoY to Rs 93 crore

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. reported a 77% year-on-year (YoY) decline in consolidated net profit to Rs 93.41 crore, for the quarter ended September. The company’s total income saw a decline of 19.6% YoY to Rs 1,760.61 crore, during the same period. Zee also stated that it had introduced cost-saving initiatives and sold various non-core assets in Q2.

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Punjab National Bank Q2 Results: 22% YoY increase in net profit

Punjab National Bank reported a 22% year-on-year (YoY) increase in standalone net profit to Rs 621 crore, for the quarter ended September (Q2). The bank’s net interest income (NII) increased by 85% YoY to Rs 8,393 crore, during the same period. The company has also posted an improvement in its asset quality.

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Pfizer Q2 Results: 15% YoY decline in net profit

Pfizer Limited reported a 14.83% year-on-year (YoY) decline in net profit to Rs 131.37 crore, for the quarter ended September (Q2). The total income stood at Rs 607.56 crore, during the same period. In a statement made last week, Pfizer had said that it could deliver the Covid-19 vaccine in 2020.

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Thermax gets Rs 320 crore order to set up Combined Heat and Power plant

Thermax Limited announced that it has received an order of Rs 320 crore, for setting up a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant for Assam Bio Refinery Pvt Ltd (ABRPL). The company is a leading energy and environment solutions provider. Thermax Ltd. will help in the design, engineering, and construction of the CHP plant in Assam.

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Escorts Q2 Results: Two-fold jump in net profit to Rs 227 crore

Escorts Ltd reported a 130% year-on-year (YoY) increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 227.22 crore, for the quarter ended September (Q2). The company’s revenue from operations stood at Rs 1,654.18 crore, during the same period. Haryana-based Escorts is a multinational engineering company that mainly produces farm equipment.

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Wockhardt Q2 Results: Net Profit at Rs 3.29 crore

Drug firm Wockhardt Limited reported a consolidated net profit of 3.29 crore, for the quarter ended September (Q2). The consolidated revenue of the company stood at Rs 714.05 crore, during the same period. The company has been selected by the UK Government to supply Covid-19 vaccine. The share price of Wockhardt saw a rise of 0.94%, and closed at Rs 295.05 on the NSE today.

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