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Small-cap stock below 100: Pharma stock in focus after Q4 results 2025, final dividend for FY25

Small-cap stock below 100: Pharma stock in focus after Q4 results 2025, final dividend for FY25

Mint7 days ago

Small-cap stock below 100: Sigachi Industries Ltd announced its January-March quarter results for fiscal 2024-25 (Q4FY25) on Saturday, May 31, reporting a net profit of ₹ 697.78 lakh compared to ₹ 1,172.93 lakh in the corresponding period last year.
The Hyderabad-based BSE Smallcap company said that its reported a consolidated net profit of ₹ 22.67 crore in Q4, up nearly 7 per cent on YoY basis. The company had earned a net profit of ₹ 15.17 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
The company's revenue from operations surged by 23 per cent to ₹ 128.2 crore versus ₹ 104.1 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of the FY 2024. Its expenses in the reporting quarter increased to ₹ 107.7 crore from ₹ 94.1 crore in March 2024 quarter.

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RBI's 50 bps repo rate cut bonanza: Here's how it will impact homebuyers' EMIs
RBI's 50 bps repo rate cut bonanza: Here's how it will impact homebuyers' EMIs

Hindustan Times

time38 minutes ago

  • Hindustan Times

RBI's 50 bps repo rate cut bonanza: Here's how it will impact homebuyers' EMIs

Although the festive season is still months away, RBI's 50 bps rate cut is welcome news for prospective homebuyers, as it will help lower overall borrowing costs. For existing homebuyers, the RBI's rate cut means they can now opt for a higher loan amount without increasing their EMI. The central bank has also adopted a neutral stance, signaling that it is unlikely to either cut or hike rates aggressively in the near term. This suggests that further rate cuts are not expected anytime soon, making it an opportune moment to buy a home—especially for those who are ready and need one. However, experts caution that undecided buyers should not base their homebuying decisions solely on lower interest rates. Other financial and personal factors must also be considered. Also, the actual benefit, however, hinges on how quickly banks pass on the cut by reducing their Marginal Cost of Funds-based Lending Rates (MCLR). 'With the RBI announcing a third rate cut this calendar year, bringing the total repo rate reduction to 100 basis points (bps), we're seeing a gradual but positive shift for borrowers. Although each cut, including the recent 50 bps reduction, may seem modest in isolation, cumulatively they help ease the overall cost of borrowing,' says Deepak Kumar Jain, founder and CEO of a loan distribution company. For instance, on a ₹50 lakh home loan over 20 years, the EMI drops by around ₹3,164. For loans of ₹1 crore and ₹1.5 crore, the monthly savings are approximately ₹6,329 and ₹9,493, respectively. While these savings aren't massive, they do improve affordability, especially in a high-cost housing market. The rate cuts since the beginning of the year also mean that borrowers can now opt for a higher loan amount while keeping their EMI unchanged. With the RBI having reduced the repo rate by 100 bps so far this year, home loan rates are expected to fall further as banks begin to transmit the benefits of the monetary policy. 'This means if someone is paying a 9% interest rate for a ₹1 crore home loan and the interest rate comes down to 8%, then by keeping the EMI constant, they can opt for a higher loan amount by almost ₹7.5 lakhs,' says Abhishek Kumar, founder and chief investment advisor of SahajMoney, a financial planning firm. The actual transmission to the end borrowers would depend on how quickly the banks pass on the benefits through lower Marginal Cost of Funds-based Lending Rate (MCLR) rates. Thanks to the 100 bps rate cut this year, including a fresh 50 bps slash, Priya, a young IT professional in Pune, sees her ₹50 lakh home loan EMI reduced by over ₹3,000. That saving bridges the gap between rent and ownership, letting her seriously plan her move from tenant to homeowner. The RBI has also cut the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by 100 bps. This does not have a direct impact on home loan interest rates but there is an indirect impact. 'The reduction in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) will help boost liquidity in the banking system, which means that banks have more funds to lend. Developers will be able to access more capital for their projects, and this can positively impact project completion timelines. It also gives banks the option to reduce home loan interest rates, which will have again positively impact sentiment in the affordable and mid-income segments,' says Anuj Puri, chairman, Anarock Group. 'With this RBI rate cut, the EMIs will come down by almost 10-12%. For example, if a person wants to continue with the same tenure the EMIs will be lesser, however if someone opts for a shorter tenure, the EMIs can remain the same and the loan can be paid within a shorter tenure,' said Sanjay Daga, CEO and managing director of Anex Advisory. Assume you have a ₹50 lakh home loan with an interest rate of 8% per annum and a tenure of 20 years. - Loan Amount: ₹50,00,000 - Interest Rate: 8% per annum - Tenure: 20 years - EMI: approximately ₹41,833 - Loan Amount: ₹50,00,000 - Interest Rate: 7.5% per annum - Tenure: 20 years - EMI: approximately ₹38,781 In this scenario, the EMI would decrease by approximately ₹3,052 ( ₹41,833 - ₹38,781), which is around a 7.3% reduction. If you choose to keep the EMI the same ( ₹41,833) and opt for a shorter tenure, you could potentially save around 2-3 years on your loan repayment, depending on the lender's calculations. The RBI has also shifted to a neutral stance. Which means that they are neither inclined to cut nor hike interest rates aggressively in the immediate future. This means that further rate cuts in the immediate future are not likely. Hence it makes this the perfect time to buy a house if you really need one. However, homebuyers who are undecided should not base their decision solely on the reduction in home loan interest rates. 'Since floating rate loans fluctuate over the loan tenure, interest rates may rise or fall in the future. Instead, buyers should also consider their other financial goals and ensure they can afford the EMI payments throughout different economic cycles,' explains Kumar. Anagh Pal is a personal finance expert who writes on real estate, tax, insurance, mutual funds and other topics

For Sai Srinivas of Mobile Premier League, the game is always on
For Sai Srinivas of Mobile Premier League, the game is always on

Mint

timean hour ago

  • Mint

For Sai Srinivas of Mobile Premier League, the game is always on

It's easy for people to put a value to a loss they've had," says Garimella Sai Srinivas Kiran, the co-founder of gaming company M-League, which runs the Mobile Premier League (MPL). '(But) It's hard to put a value to these intangible gains, right? You only notice them in the long term. In the short term, you only see the pain." Startup founders tend to be philosophical, a by-product of betting big on a non-existent product and making it work, despite the obstacles and the body blows. The seven-year-old skill-gaming platform MPL. which has free and paid components and a portfolio of over 60 games, probably does not qualify as a startup anymore, but tends to fall into the bracket by virtue of being a tech company. M-League, which now has five companies including the Berlin-based GameDuell, has a portfolio that includes skill gaming, free-to-play games, game publishing and AAA game studio (high-budget, high-profile games). With over 220 million users across MPL and GameDuell in 32 countries, a unicorn valuation as of the last fund raise in 2021, presence in Asia, Europe, North America and Africa, and 600-odd employees, the company straddles the challenging business of skill gaming. Its revenue in FY24 was $130 million. Sai was in Mumbai in early May for the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (Waves), a government-sponsored event. In the business centre of the Sofitel Hotel in Bandra Kurla Complex, close to the venue for Waves where MPL had a booth, the 37-year-old, dressed casually in a collared T-shirt, slacks and a cap, orders an Americano. He has an easy-going manner, and a dimpled boyish smile that he uses liberally. Sai is temporarily stationed in Singapore these days, where M-League is headquartered, while his co-founder Shubh Malhotra and Galactus Funware Technology Pvt Ltd, the operating entity for MPL, are based in Bengaluru. Since losing his father last year, Sai says he has started valuing his time more and separating his professional and personal identities. 'One of my core philosophies in life is anonymity. I want to focus on my business," he explains. 'I really enjoy travelling; I can travel literally 60 days with one suitcase, keep moving from one place to the other." Born in Hyderabad—his father was a deputy manager in a bank, mother a teacher in a government school—Sai's academic journey fell into two innings. He was 'not very good" in the beginning, but an inexplicable switch turned after class VI. By the time he reached the board exam stage, he wanted to study aerospace engineering. Also read: What Siddharth Roy Kapur wants: Fresh stories told in unique voices He got into IIT Kanpur which had, among other things, a dedicated leased line for fast (for those times) internet speed. However, he soon became disenchanted with the education system there and his enthusiasm for making aircraft withered away. 'For people coming from a normal background like us, the first important level of freedom we need to attain is mastery of our time," says Sai, who graduated in 2010 as one of the few in his batch without a campus placement. One of his highlights at IIT turned out to be organising the cultural festival, Antaragni, which included the music festival Synchronicity. What this first, quasi-entrepreneurial voluntary role did was to get him access to his first job, which was a brief stint as product manager with a digital company in Delhi. He was soon recruited by Zynga in Bengaluru as a game designer, though he had no such experience. 'I played a lot of games while growing up," he admits. 'My dad and I were always particular about getting new gadgets, like the Nokia 3310 and the (gaming console) Super Nintendo." Zynga, with its popular game Farmville, was going 'absolute gangbusters" at the time, which put Sai in the 'right place, right time". It also helped that he didn't like Delhi too much and moving to Bengaluru was not a challenge. The third benefit, unbeknownst to him at the time, was that the friend's place he temporarily stayed at had another roommate, Malhotra. A year-and-a-half later, Sai and Malhotra got ready with their first venture, CREO Tech. Their first product, Tewee, was a wireless HDMI dongle to stream videos over a Wi-Fi network, like the Amazon Firestick. The idea seemed to fit in at a time when streaming services were making their forays into the country. 'We were foolish enough to say let's make hardware," he says now. 'We used to download these documents in Chinese and spend days translating them and figuring out what they hacked our way to getting the product out." They sold over 50,000 units, but making hardware was challenging. Other similar products were getting into the market; the duo realised they needed to pivot. In the company of some 'smart engineers" they hired through their college network, their next venture was an Android-based operating system and smartphone, which also turned out to be an error in hindsight. 'I'll tell you the problem with making a phone and with hardware in general," he says. 'For example, let's assume I ship software and I left a bug in it. I'm just going to patch the software and I'll fix it. Life is okay, all good. With hardware, even if you make one mistake, the amount of time it's going to take to correct that mistake in the next iteration and then get it right—it's just massive." After several struggles, managing to make only a few thousand of the product Creo Mark 1, they sold the company to messenger service Hike in 2016-17. 'If a river is flowing downstream and you're standing on the bank and you see this guy on a boat going really fast, you tend to assume that it's the person rowing. But it's actually the underlying river. That's the market: If you're in the right place, right time, right market, even if you are really stupid, you'll be okay," says Sai. After going through a period of angst, when they felt like they would never work together again, Malhotra and Sai made a deal not to have friends as employees, and that 'the outcome is always more important than output". Having decided that their next turn would be in the field of online gaming, because of his experience in the field, the newly formed Galactus Funware went live with the MPL in September 2018. With about $5.5 million ( ₹36.5 crore at the time) at the get-go, a fairly large seed round, from Sequoia Capital, their ascent was rapid—a term sheet in April, an early team by May and the first prototype by July. A friends and family round by end of August leading up to the launch. By December, MPL had a million daily active users. But the challenges were continuous and constant. In May 2019, MPL was kicked out of the Play Store due to Google's developer policy (it relaxed its policy on real-money gaming last year), along with other gaming platforms like Dream11. 'We would be the only company in India's ecosystem that started, raised a lot of money, got to a million daily active users and shut its doors within the year," Sai says grinning. Then by the second half of 2019 they almost ran out of money, looking to raise a bridge round which came in the form of $90m led by Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital. '2019 for me was the most foundationally painful year. If Creo was tough from a different standpoint, this was toughness induced by my own stupidity," he says. Cricketer Virat Kohli came on board as their brand ambassador. The following year, MPL signed on with the Board of Control for Cricket in India to be the kit sponsor for the Indian team. With the pandemic, the founders had to navigate working remotely, and between 2020-21, the company went from 120 employees to 1,200, perhaps hiring too many people too fast. 'In my 10 years of doing start-ups, I believe, that is the most unpardonable mistake," he admits. As MPL went global, especially into the US in July 2021, and acquired European company GameDuell in early 2022, 'one of the smartest things to have done", it also laid off 10% of its force and shut down its Indonesia office. But the business, on the back of the pandemic-induced lockdown that catalysed the online gaming industry, grew by 50%. Just when 2023 seemed on the up, hitting 200 million users and a foray into Africa, the government in August announced a 28% GST on funds online gaming companies collect from customers. Mint had in November quoted a report by gaming-focused venture capital firm Lumikai, which had India's gaming market growing 23% year-on-year by revenue to $3.8 billion in 2023-24 despite 28% GST on online gaming. Propelled by the pandemic-induced lockdowns, online gaming is booming, despite some amount of social stigma, and some legal battles, most of which have been dismissed by the courts. 'We looked at this entire GST thing and said this is essentially the start line being redrawn," remembers Sai. MPL laid off 350 employees—half of its force—to survive the tax burden in 2023. Recovery was aided by GameDuell, which helped grow revenue more than three times. MPL started to take off in the US and Brazil, with 40% of its current revenues coming from abroad. 'It's a personal ambition that we want to build a product that stands globally," Sai explains. 'The professional ambition is that things are evolving in a developing country, so there is no certainty for a business to thrive." While MPL as a business competes with platforms like WinZO and Zupee among others, it is more comparable to Nazara Technologies, which is publicly listed. Sai, though, prefers to see his competition coming from Chinese gaming conglomerate Tencent. As he gets ready to head back to Waves, he talks about reading, spending a lot of time just being idle, really enjoying the mundane. 'One of the reasons why I enjoy living in Singapore," he says thoughtfully, 'or spending time with my partner in Dubai, is that in India, these amazing pleasures of doing your own domestic chores have been taken away thanks to the massive amount of help, which is great. But I really enjoy doing my breakfast, putting my clothes in these daily rituals." Also read: Vaibhav Kala of Aquaterra Adventures: The outdoors man

Mithi River desilting fraud: ED searches 15 locations, including Dino Morea's home
Mithi River desilting fraud: ED searches 15 locations, including Dino Morea's home

Hindustan Times

time2 hours ago

  • Hindustan Times

Mithi River desilting fraud: ED searches 15 locations, including Dino Morea's home

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday carried out searches at 15 locations in Mumbai and Kochi in connection with the alleged irregularities in contracts for desilting the Mithi River, which resulted in a loss of ₹65.54 crore for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). The locations that were searched include the home and office of actor Dino Morea, who has been questioned twice in connection with the case; the residences of arrested intermediaries Ketan Kadam and Jay Joshi; the residence of Prashant Ramugade, a deputy chief engineer with the BMC who was also named as an accused; and the premises of Matprop Technical Services Pvt Ltd, a Kochi-based company that rented machinery and equipment for the desilting work, officials said. The searches continued until late Friday evening, and the ED found some incriminating documents, officials said. Morea could be summoned to record his statement in a few days, officials added. The ED has launched a money-laundering investigation in the case based on the FIR registered by the Mumbai police's Economic Offence Wing last month. The EOW had booked 13 people in the case, including three BMC officials. Two of them—alleged intermediaries Ketan Kadam and Jay Joshi—were arrested. Joshi was granted bail by a sessions court on Thursday. The EOW had earlier interrogated Dino Morea and his brother Santino after finding financial transactions between them and Kadam's family. The police suspect that the transactions, which took place during the period of the alleged fraud—from 2019 to 2022—could be linked to the desilting contracts. The Moreas and Kadams have known each other for around 25 years, according to the police. Santino Morea and Kadam's wife, Punita, are also directors of a Mumbai-based company, UBO Ridez Private Limited, which operates Victoria-style electric carriages. According to the EOW, the three accused BMC officials allegedly tailored the tender for the desilting contracts to benefit Matprop, resulting in the company's monopoly over the contracts. When the BMC's contractors approached Matprop for desilting equipment, they were directed to approach Joshi and Kadam, who, in connivance with the company, rented the machines at inflated rates, according to the EOW. Matprop's director, Dipak Mohan, who was also booked in the case, has denied that he or his company were involved in the fraud. The accused also allegedly fudged records to increase the amount of silt to be removed from the Mithi River to benefit the contractors and the rates that they were supposed to be paid, according to the EOW.

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