CHENNAI : Public sector banks (PSBs) here like the State Bank of India (SBI) and the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) are planning to give festival gifts to their employees.

The two banks have announced a Diwali gift of sweets/dry fruits/chocolates for their staff worth ₹1,000.

The fortunes of financially stressed telecom incumbents worsened on Thursday as they face a massive `92,000-crore liability with the Supreme Court upholding the government’s definition of adjusted gross revenue. While the amount owed by Bharti Airtel is `21,682 crore, Vodafone Idea needs to pay Rs 28,308 crore.

PNB Housing Finance on Thursday reported a 45% year-on-year (y-o-y) increase in its net profit to `366.8 crore for the quarter ended September, led by a 36% y-o-y rise in net interest income. Net interest income (NII) stood at `628.4 crore at the end of Q2FY20. Net interest margin (NIM), a key measure of profitability, stood at 3.19%, a 47 basis point increase from a year ago.

Disbursements fell to Rs 12,603.5 crore in H1FY20, compared to Rs 18,172.2 crore a year ago. While retail disbursement fell 10% y-o-y to Rs 11,748 crore, corporate fell 83% y-o-y to Rs 856 crore in H1.

Decks have been cleared for Kerala government’s Rs 1,300-crore petrochemical park project in Kochi, after the Centre’s nod for buying land from Central PSU Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT). Even as the chairman of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the world’s biggest petroleum firms, came forward to invest in the proposed Kochi petro-park, there was uncertainty over the project due to dilly-dallying on the land transfer.

Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting hopes that the recent good monsoon would revive rural demand in the FMCG sector, which has been subdued due to factors like demonetisation, GST implementation, NBFC crisis and stressed bank assets.

Anil Chugh, chief executive of Wipro’s consumer care business, India, said their soap brand, Santoor, has a strong presence in the rural market.

Beating market expectations, ITC on Thursday reported a robust 36.16% year-on-year jump in its standalone net profit to `4,023.10 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, buoyed by 44.5% y-o-y lower tax expenses. Apart from lower tax outgo on the back of corporate tax cuts, the diversified conglomerate got larger benefits in terms of a massive decrease in its total tax expenses in the September quarter this fiscal, due to ‘re-measured’ deferred tax liabilities.

Jeff Bezos is about to relinquish the title of world’s richest person to Bill Gates, as Amazon.com Inc. stock tumbled in late trading Thursday.

Shares of the biggest online retailer dropped 8.1 per cent to $1,637 in extended trading at 4:24 p.m. in New York. At that price, Bezos would have a net worth of $102.8 billion, ranking him second, and almost $5 billion behind Gates, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bezos took the top spot from the Microsoft Corp. co-founder in October 2017.

Microsoft Corp's Azure cloud services grew more slowly in its first quarter even as profit and revenue beat estimates, the company said on Wednesday, a sign that competition is picking up in its fastest-growing business.

Revenue from Azure increased 59% in the quarter ended Sept. 30, but came in well below last year's 76% growth.

The higher cost of buying a new car and weak sales in the low-cost model category impacted the company’s earnings substantially in the second quarter of FY20, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) Chairman RC Bhargava said. It comes as the country’s largest car manufacturer reported a 24 per cent drop in sales in the first half of the ongoing fiscal. Volume sales during the quarter under review stood at 3,38,317 units, down 30.2 per cent as compared with the same period last fiscal.

Industry body COAI on Thursday said the Supreme Court ruling on the telecom sector revenue definition will deal a “disastrous blow” to the industry, given its precarious financial condition. “The question that arises is whether this is the financial straw that finally breaks the back of operators,” Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) Director General Rajan Mathews told PTI. Mathews further said this is a “disastrous blow” for the industry given its current state of acute stress.

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