SBI, IDFC First Bank, Dish TV, HUL, Powergrid, IndiGo

SBI: State Bank of India (SBI) has announced that it is ready to embrace new recommended interest rate benchmarks necessitated from LIBOR cessation for its day-to-day businesses and in product pricing. All the systems and processes in SBI are aligned to support transactions linked to these Alternate Reference Rates (ARR). All the new transactions will be referenced to the new benchmark rates from January 1, 2022, as per the recommendations of RBI and other banking regulators across the world.

IDFC First Bank: IDFC First Bank in its board meeting has considered a proposal for merger of ‘IDFC Ltd’ and ‘IDFC Financial Holding Company (Promoter Group) with it, the company informed the exchanges on Thursday. Further, the board has expressed that it is in-principle, in favour of the above merger, subject to the approval of the Board of Directors, shareholders, creditors, statutory and regulatory approvals of the respective entities.

NTPC: State-owned power giant NTPC arm NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd (NREL) will float a global engineering procurement and construction tender to set up a 3GW renewable energy project with a battery storage system worth around ₹15,000 crore by February 2022, according to a senior official. SAIL Power Company Ltd (NSPCL), a joint venture of NTPC & SAIL, has paid the second interim dividend of ₹45 crore for 2021-22 towards NTPC’s 50 per cent share, a company statement said.

ITC: Diversified entity ITC Ltd on Thursday said it has collaborated with Invest India, a non-profit venture by the central government for national investment promotion and facilitation, to crowdsource innovative ideas for single-use plastic substitution and automate waste segregation.

Dish TV: The nearly-four-month fight between Dish TV India Ltd and its largest shareholder Yes Bank Ltd could stretch longer as Dish TV decided not to disclose the voting results of the three resolutions tabled before shareholders and, instead, submit the outcome of the voting results in a sealed envelope to the Bombay high court. Dish TV will submit the outcome of the three resolutions to the Bombay high court in line with what the company claims was the court’s earlier order, it told the exchanges after its annual general meeting (AGM) on Thursday.

HUL: FMCG distributors have pledged to stop selling select products of packaged goods major Hindustan Unilever Ltd. in Maharashtra, citing concerns over the company’s inability to engage in a dialogue with them over price disparity between traditional distributors and organized business-to-business distributors. Maharashtra is a key market for the maker of Dove shampoo and Bru coffee.

RBL Bank: The board of private lender RBL Bank on Thursday formed a search committee to identify candidates for the position of managing director and chief executive officer both from within and outside the bank. At present, the bank is being headed by interim chief executive Rajeev Ahuja whose appointment was on Wednesday approved by the regulator for three months from 25 December. On Saturday evening, the bank had said in two separate regulatory statements that RBI has appointed an additional director on its board that chief executive officer Vishwavir Ahuja will go on immediate leave.

IndiGo: Shareholders of InterGlobe Aviation, which operates India’s largest airline IndiGo, have passed a resolution to amend a contentious RoFR clause in the company’s articles of association, according to an exchange filing. The exchange filing revealed 99.99% shareholders have voted in favour of the resolution. The amendement gives promoters the right of first refusal over the acquisition of each other’s stake.

Power Grid Corporation of India: The company has approved investment proposal for ‘expansion of POWERGRID telecom into data centre business and to establish a data centre at Manesar at an estimated cost of around ₹322 crore.

Textile stocks: On the recommendations of the GST Council, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) announced that the GST rate on garments, textiles, and footwear would be raised from 5% to 12% with effect from January 1, 2022.