Author: Raoji

(Disclosure:I am market making in the shares of Catholic Syrian Bank)

Kerala-based Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB) is planning to raise money by way of preferential allotment of equity in favour of investors. They include Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, Reliance Capital, ICICI Pru, HDFC Standard Life, Bennet Coleman & Co, Bharati Axa and Bajaj Alliance.

While the management of the Bank was not available for comment immediately, notice to the investors stated that the Bank is planning to issue and allot upto 1,32,03,856 equity shares for cash at a price to be determined by the Board with the price band of Rs 100 to Rs 120 per share, including premium. The total consideration would be around Rs 132 crore to Rs 158 crore.-from BS

Corruption in the central government is gone. There is a tough message out from the Prime Minister’s Office that graft will not be tolerated.

There is an overall drive against black money with various schemes being tried to put a plug on it.

The same hard stand has been taken with bank loans and one place to start has been the process of selection of public sector bank chiefs.

A member of the committee who would interview candidates for public sector bank chairmen told me that after 2014, they stopped getting calls from the power centre on who to hire. The rate used to be fixed, he said, we were just told to pick the name told to us.

Who’d pay? Firms that would then benefit from easy loans and terms. Those calls have stopped.

The hardening stance of the state on black money shows up in the prices of real estate.

Real estate has been the sump of black money in India and the politician-builder-land mafia nexus had raised prices to a level that was beyond any economic logic.

People who bought their Rs.8 crore luxury floors in Gurgaon are unable to find a buyer at half the price.

The winter for real estate is going to last a long time—so if you are still holding on to an investment thinking it will recover, plan on bequests rather than profits in the near future-wrote Monika Halan