Latest news with #AmitTandon
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Business Standard
21-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Bonds, power, and the spirit of the Himalayas
It's strange how confident one can feel while gliding over danger. Like those few seconds on a frozen pond in January when the ice doesn't crack, and you start to believe you've mastered the balance, that is until you hear that hairline snap underneath. That feeling, that delicate mix of poise and peril, seems to be everywhere now. From financial markets to geopolitics to spiritual searches, everyone's dancing, and few realise how thin the ice is beneath their feet. Let's dive in. Take the US, for instance. After over a century of triple-A glory, its sovereign bonds are slipping. Moody's has joined Fitch and S&P in docking America's rating, citing ballooning deficits and unstoppable interest costs. With the 30-year yield peaking above 5 per cent, it's not just a fiscal warning, it's a shift in how global capital flows, notes our first editorial. India, too, could feel the chill as narrowing bond yield spreads may tip investments away from equities, putting pressure on our rupee. As global borrowing costs spike, the dance is turning into a test of stamina. Closer home, India's power utilities are taking tentative steps toward reform—listing on exchanges to enforce transparency. Gujarat's GETCO leads, but discoms across the country are still slipping on decades of political meddling, highlights our second editorial. Despite multiple bailouts, losses hover at ₹6.8 trillion, with pricing reforms stuck. Listings may force financial discipline, but it's like expecting figure skaters to perfect a routine on cracked ice. Change is needed, but the surface is fragile. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have just performed a bold ballet in Moscow, affirming their alliance amid US-China trade manoeuvres and India-Pakistan skirmishes, writes Shyam Saran. Their synchronized steps, military parades, diplomatic statements, and joint condemnations of the West, mask a deeper chill: China is edging toward tech parity, and India must rethink its footing in a shifting strategic landscape. In corporate India, the tension is more subtle. Promoters still dominate the floor, outvoting institutional dissent with ease, argues Amit Tandon. While regulatory reforms push for inclusivity, dissent often skates by unacknowledged. Amit Tandon proposes a gentle corrective—a 'dissent review' to ensure boards engage when more than 10 per cent disagree. Not a rupture, just a ripple, to keep the balance honest. And in the Himalayas, Anu Malhotra dances with the unseen. Her book Shamans of the Himalayas captures trance rituals, divine possessions, and the unspoken codes that guide village life in Kullu, writes Neha Kirpal in her review. Here too, the ice is sacred, the ground invisible, the faith absolute. A different kind of balancing act, but no less daring. Stay tuned!
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Business Standard
20-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Rethinking how promoters handle dissent can empower shareholder democracy
Given the concentrated ownership and control, external investors are willing to invest only when they can trust the company's governance and leadership Amit Tandon Listen to This Article The ownership structure of Indian companies has had an outsized influence in shaping the country's corporate governance. For starters, around 65 per cent of companies in the BSE100 are family-owned and family-run. This number only goes up as you move beyond the frontline indices. The data from the Nifty 500 too backs this up — promoters held 54.5 per cent of equity back in December 2015, which rose to 58.9 per cent by June 2020. Today they own about 51 per cent. While this is a drop from the peak, it is still more than what institutional investors and all
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Business Standard
29-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Bright notes, broken chords, and new symphonies
There's something timeless about the sound of a flute — light, sweet, yet layered with a melancholy that bends and distorts with each breath. It is a strange thing — breath made visible, sound shaped from emptiness. Its notes can be piercing or tender, pure or fractured, depending on the player's touch. A single tune can shimmer like sunlight on water, then twist into something unexpected. Much like the world today, bright beginnings, sudden breaks, melodies interrupted and remade. Let's dive in. Apple, it seems, is preparing to play a new symphony. It plans to shift all iPhone production for the US market from China to India — potentially doubling output. After assembling $22 billion worth of iPhones here last year, Apple's next move could send ripples through India's manufacturing landscape, notes our first editorial. Yet for all its noise, this opportunity needs careful tuning — simpler rules, easier land access, lower duties — or the music may fade before it soars. Meanwhile, the sudden suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan hits like a discordant note. Once the background hum of diplomacy, the treaty now strains under the weight of geopolitics, argues our second editorial. The change is largely symbolic today, but like a low, trembling drone beneath the melody, it may reshape water politics across South Asia, with China and Bangladesh close by, listening. In a similarly fluid dance, India's trade negotiations with the United States, as Ajay Srivastava explores, reveal another layered tune - the enticing promise of a bilateral agreement, overlaid with the harsher demands of market access, agricultural concessions, and digital control. India must play carefully and resist trading away its core strengths for superficial wins — keeping its tune, and tone, intact. On the corporate side, Amit Tandon notes that AGMs — once vibrant assemblies — have faded into near-irrelevance. Shareholder votes now happen silently online, and managements dodge the tough questions. The music has moved elsewhere, but the old stage still stands, silently, and strangely out of sync. Finally, Chintan Girish Modi reviews Raisina Chronicles edited by S Jaishankar and Samir Saran, a new book capturing the diplomatic symphony of India's Raisina Dialogue. A celebratory, if slightly selective, anthology — reminding us how sometimes the brightest notes are the ones left unsaid. Stay tuned, and remember, it's not just the volume of a note that matters, but the honesty of its sound!
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Business Standard
28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
AGMs: Where are the shareholders despite a surge in investor base?
While the number of shareholders continues to rise, investor participation in annual general meetings has been steadily declining Premium Amit Tandon Listen to This Article Writing about the East India Company in the 1700s, Nick Robins in his book The Corporation That Changed the World wrote that 'the (East India) Company operated as a limited property-based democracy that was run for and by its shareholders……(The) Company's shareholders had to have £500 of nominal stock before they could vote either in the quarterly meetings of the Court of Proprietors held in March, June, September, and December, or at the annual meeting in April. This was the high point in the Company's calendar, when over a thousand shareholders would gather to elect a slate of 24 directors.'
Economic Times
24-04-2025
- Business
- Economic Times
India Inc's spending on CSR hit the fast lane in FY24
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending of NSE-listed companies saw the highest year-on-year jump in four years at 15.7% in fiscal 2024 on the back of strong profit growth, according to a study that analysed the numbers from 1,394 spends at these companies rose to Rs 17,967 crore in 2023-24, as they saw a 18% rise in average net profit (of the preceding three years), according to data shared exclusively with ET by The spending rose 4.8% to Rs 15524 crore in FY23 and was flattish in the previous two fiscal years. The top 10 companies in terms of CSR spending — led by HDFC Bank (Rs 954.31 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs 900 crore) and Tata Consultancy Services (Rs 827 crore) – accounted for 34% of the total amount. Others in the top 10 were Oil & Natural Gas Corp (Rs 634.57 crore), Tata Steel (Rs 580.02 crore), ICICI Bank (Rs 518.87 crore), Indian Oil Corp (Rs 457.71 crore), Infosys (Rs 455.67 crore), ITC (Rs 404.05 crore) and Power Grid Corporation of India (Rs 330.48 crore). Spending by public sector units rose 19% over the previous year — 66 PSUs spent Rs 3,717 crore in FY24, up from Rs 3,136 crore spent by 56 PSUs in CSR law, which came into force in April 2014, mandates that companies with at least a net worth of Rs 500 crore, revenue of Rs 1,000 crore or net profit of Rs 5 crore during the preceding financial year must spend 2% of the average net profit of the previous three years on CSR to the three-year rolling average net profit of these 1,394 companies was Rs 9.62 lakh crore, up from Rs 8.14 lakh crore in per CSR requirements, the amount required to be spent by them was Rs 18,309 crore (Rs 15,713 crore in FY23), against which they spent slightly lower at Rs 17,967 crore (Rs 15,524 crore in 2022-23).'The shortfall can be explained by the increase in amount which remained unspent, which was transferred by companies to the Unspent CSR Account (Rs 2,329 crore) for use in future years,' said Prime Database Group managing director Pranav Haldea. As in previous years, education (Rs 1,104 crore) received the biggest chunk of companies' CSR spends, followed by hunger, poverty and healthcare (Rs 720 crore), based on data of 544 companies among the 1,394 that voluntarily made this disclosure. While the uptick in spending is a function of profits going up over the years, companies have also become more structured and thoughtful in the way they are spending on CSR, said Amit Tandon, managing director of proxy-advisory firm Institutional Investor Advisory Service India (IIAS). 'They are aligning these spends to their strategy and corporate purpose, and have shifted from projects to themes; for example: education in Raipur district. In addition, they are now measuring the impact.' Haldea said it is also now time for the government to consider revising these thresholds upwards, given the passage of time and ease of doing business. 'The average three-year net profit of companies listed on the NSE has more than doubled from Rs 4.18 lakh crore in 2014-15, the first year of this regulation, to Rs 9.62 lakh crore in 2023-24. Accordingly, the thresholds may now be revised upwards to keep the relatively smaller companies out of the purview of this regulation, which was the original intent as well,' he to 2,013 companies were listed on NSE main board as on March 31, 2024. Of these, 1944 had details relating to CSR given in the annual reports, of which, 1394 were obligated to spend on CSR, up from 1,297 companies in 2022-23. This analysis is based on these 1,394 spends by NSE-listed cos over the last five years 2023-24 2022-23 2021-22 2020-21 2019-20 No of cos 1394 1297 1214 1153 1122 Avg net profit of last 3 years (Rs crore) 9,61,963 8,13,678 7,20,343 6,81,324 6,79,601 Actual amt spent (Rs crore) 17,967 15524 14816 14780 14751 Yoy increase in spends 15.7% 4.8% 0.2% 0.2% 25.2% Note: Includes administrative expenses and impact assessment gainer; biggest loser(Factoring in data of 440 companies for which project details were available for both FY24 and FY23) Environmental sustainability (54%) saw the max increase in CSR spends Slum development (-72%) saw the sharpest drop Source:
