Gautam Adani Comes Out Agressively In An Address To Shareholders

• <00:55> Gautam Adani comes out agressively in an address to shareholders.
• <06:59> The Enforcement Directorate will share information with the Goods & Services Tax Network, what does it mean now?
• <15:40> Global growth has shown resilience but manufacturing is slowing, says IMF Chief in Gandhinagar
• <16:57> And hmm..the income tax says inoperative PAN card is not the same as an inactive

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TRANSCRIPT

NOTE: This transcript contains only the host's monologue and does not include any interviews or discussions that might be within the podcast. Please refer to the episode audio if you wish to quote the people interviewed. Email [email protected] for any queries.

Good morning, it's Wednesday the 19th of July and I'm Govindraj Ethiraj coming to you from Mumbai which has been on Orange alert for high rains!

Our Top Reports For Today

• Gautam Adani comes out aggressively in an address to shareholders.
• The Enforcement Directorate will share information with the Goods & Services Tax Network, what does it mean now?
• Global growth has shown resilience but manufacturing is slowing, says IMF Chief in Gandhinagar.
• And hmm..the income tax says an inoperative PAN card is not the same as an inactive PAN card.

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Gautam Adani came out aggressively in a speech to shareholders at the annual general meeting of flagship firm Adani Enterprises Ltd. yesterday.
He brought up Hindenburg Research's "malicious" allegations of corporate fraud and stock manipulation, which he labelled as "false narratives" that "various vested interests tried to exploit."
He did not get into any specifics though nor presumably he would in an address to shareholders whose confidence he is trying to win back.
US-based Hindenburg had put out a damaging report in January which at peak wiped out more than $150 billion of the group's market values and accused the Adani Group of stock manipulation via offshore entities.
Adani said the report was aimed at generating a profit by driving down its stock prices. "Subsequently, despite a fully subscribed FPO, we decided to return the money to investors to protect their interests. While we issued our rebuttal, various vested interests targeted us," Adani said.

In the meanwhile, the Adani Group has of course recast its plans and projects, pulled back on acquisitions, scaled back spends and pre-paid debt to address concerns about its cash flows and borrowings.

An interim report from a Supreme Court-appointed panel in May said it found no evidence of stock-price manipulation. Adani Enterprises, which is the flagship of the group, said its profits doubled to Rs 722 crore or ($88 million).

"My belief in the growth story of our mathrubhumi has never been stronger," Adani said, meaning motherland. "Our country is the most exciting land of opportunity."
After the speech, most Adani Group stocks rose, as did the market overall to which I will come to shortly.
Adani also touched upon the various green energy projects that the group is working on, including projects announced earlier. One wind and solar facility to come up in Gujarat would have a capacity of 20GW, he said.
He also reiterated his group's commitment to have 45 gigawatts of green electricity capacity by the end of this decade.
Bloomberg News reported that he did not mention any plans on hydrogen and a $50 billion hydrogen venture with TotalEnergies SE has been stalled since the French energy major put it on hold in February pending audits of the Indian conglomerate.
Hear the portion of his speech today that touches upon green energy.

Meanwhile foreign portfolio investors continued to invest steadily pushing indices to record highs again on Tuesday though some profit booking kicked in. The BSE Sensex closed at 66,795 levels, up 205 points after hitting an all-time high of 67,007 during the day.
The Nifty50, on the other hand, settled 38 points higher at 19,749 levels, edging down from a record peak of 19,819.
Overseas investors are buying strongly into Indian equities in sync with their public bullish position on Indian equities.
On the other hand, domestic institutional investors have turned net sellers, data from the exchanges showed. Foreign institutions have net bought Rs 34,444 crore worth of equities so far in July.
Results season is picking up steam and an illustrative example of how some sectors are performing is to look at the financials of banks like IndusInd Bank which reported a net profit of Rs 2,124 crore for the April-June quarter, a 33 percent jump as compared to Rs 1,631 crore clocked in the year-ago period.
Total income for Q1FY24 rose by 28 percent on-year to Rs 12,939 crore. This includes a net interest income (NII) of Rs 5,863 crore, which increased by 18 percent as compared to Rs 4,125 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.
The bank's gross non-performing asset (NPA) stood at 1.94 percent, down from 2.35 percent recorded in the same quarter last year.
Just to remind you, HDFC Bank, whose results came out two days ago, also reported a 30% growth in net profit of ₹11,951.7 crore for the quarter ended June 2023.

GSTN AND ED

Around 10 days ago, India's Finance Ministry amended the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to include the Goods & Services Tax Network as among the entities that will have to share information with the Enforcement Directorate.
The move was roundly attacked by opposition political parties who said this would bring the feared Enforcement Directorate onto regular tax payers who might slip up in the routine course of business.
Specifically, this would allow agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to seek information from the GST authorities and try to prevent tax evasion through generation of fake tax invoices.
The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) has been added as the 26th entity to the list of agencies, which are required to share information with the Enforcement Directorate and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the PMLA.
The GSTN is a nonprofit non-government company, providing shared IT infrastructure and service to both central and state governments including tax payers and other stakeholders.
The Frontend services of registration, Returns and payments to all taxpayers will be provided by GSTN. Essentially, it will be the interface between the government and the taxpayers.
Now that the dust has settled a little bit, what does this new information sharing rule really mean to a business or business owner? I spoke with Prashant Agarwal, Partner, Indirect Tax at tax firm PWC and began by asking him how he was reading the implications now.

AND G20 NEWS FROM GANDHINAGAR IN GUJARAT

Global growth has shown "some resilience" in the face of successive shocks, but prospects aren't encouraging, Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.
"…activity is slowing, especially in the manufacturing sector," Georgieva said in a statement on July 18 at the third meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Gandhinagar, an hour's drive from Ahmedabad in Gujarat..
"Looking further ahead, medium-term growth prospects remain weak. Moreover, divergences in economic fortunes across countries are a persistent concern: some pockets of the global economy are doing well; others are weakening but still growing; and vulnerable countries are falling further behind," she said.
Meanwhile, Georgieva maintained that India is a "bright spot" in the global economy echoing the sentiment expressed by Ajay Banga, the newly anointed president of the World Bank who is also in Gandhinagar right now.
Despite concerns about future growth, the IMF's boss said bringing down inflation on a durable basis is the "top priority". While the decline seen in recent months was "encouraging", Georgieva said the "job is not yet done, " she said.

And hmm..the difference between inoperative and inactive in the eyes of the taxman.

The Income Tax department has said that a permanent account number (PAN) that has become inoperative due to not being linked with the Aadhaar card, is not the same as an inactive PAN.
The clarification was aimed at tax payers including NRIs whose PANs were inoperative. NRIs specifically have been asked to intimate their residential status to their respective jurisdictional officer along with supporting documents with a request to update their residential status in the PAN database.
"It is clarified that an inoperative PAN is not an inactive PAN. One may file the Income Tax Return (ITR), irrespective of PAN becoming inoperative," the taxation body said in a statement yesterday.
However, there will be consequences of an inoperative PAN, such as the "pending refunds and interest on such refunds will not be issued to inoperative PANs".
Also, the tax deducted at source (TDS) will be deducted at a "higher rate for inoperative PANs", it said. Similarly, the tax collected at source (TCS) will be "collected at a higher rate for inoperative PANs", the IT Department added.
Yes that makes it two tax linked reports today, not a good sign presumably.
That's it for me for now, have a great day ahead and see you tomorrow at the same time.
Do write in to us with any feedback or comments or suggestions on [email protected] or on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Bye for now.