News Feed - 29 May 2010

1) A typical housing contract of any large builder is highly skewed. While the home buyer pays a penal interest of 18% per annum for a delay of 15 days on his instalments to the builder, the builder pays as little as 1% per annum for a delay exceeding 18 months in the delivery of the house — an incentive and not a deterrent to delay.

2) Microsoft had a profit margin of 25%, while Apple reported 19% Indian market, which generates as much revenue for the company as China, despite the latter adding eight times as many new personal computers in a year compared to India. The revenues from both remain almost the same. The reason: Piracy, which is higher in China.

3) The value of shares pledged has gone up, partly because of additional pledging and partly stock price appreciation. However, sectors such as consumer goods, utilities, IT, manufacturing and healthcare have seen a year-on-year rise in the number of additional shares pledged by the promoter, an analysis by Morgan Stanley revealed. Companies such as Videocon, United Spirits, Fortis Healthcare, Plethico Pharma, Suzlon Energy, Parsvnath Developers, Ackruti City and Adani Power have pledged more number of shares in value terms, the Morgan Stanley report said.
According to corporate advisors, certain sectors such as utilities have higher promoter pledging (also called loan against shares) due to the requirement of providing larger collateral security to banks and financial institutions to avail themselves of loans.