MC Insider: A fan fight, who is buying what in auto ancillaries and a bond tip

Shares of air conditioner makers rallied last week on expectations of a sweltering summer. But the real competition is heating up in the fans space. Two leading players have lined up launches and campaigns one day after the other. Will the stocks soar with the atmospheric temperature or will investors end up wiping their sweat – we’ll have to wait and watch!

Buzz is this e-pharma company wants money to fund new solar panels in its warehouses. The solar panels can bring electricity costs down by 50 percent. But the company has been in the limelight for its cash burn and mounting losses. What does it do now? A start-up dealing in fixed income products comes to help. Word has it that a commercial paper guaranteeing 10-14 percent return may be launched soon on its platform to fund the pharma company’s capex. Would you invest?

The last two weeks have seen auto ancillaries making big buys—Minda Corp buying 15.7 percent stake in Pricol, Samvardhana Motherson buying Germany-based SAS and Lumax Auto buying IAC India. We are hearing that there is more buying on the way. Rumour has it that one auto-ancillary major that has been diversifying into EV space quite aggressively might be looking for acquisitions in battery management systems (BMS space). Also, one of its major clients has said that its first EV will be out in FY24, and this auto-ancillary is known to track the OEM closely. Therefore, it will move fast.

Everyone loves a safe and high rated corporate bond paper. AAA is what opens doors for you, isn’t it? Apparently not. The bond market has a place for everyone even though it makes you believe that only the top guys get the moolah. Bond watchers tell us that low-rated high yield space is seeing some intense activity which will increase going into March. Why? Because it is the economy, stupid. Any and every economist is telling us that things will go south soon which means that yields could go down as well. What better time than to lock in that high-paying bond now? High-rolling yield guys are looking for juicy deals before the gates close. We hear the yields locked in could be as insanely high as 13-14 percent. But we wonder about the ending of this. The last time this happened, a bunch of investors got burnt badly. We hope they know what they are doing this time.

There is a new-age player that had launched investing solutions for the small retailer. They had positioned themselves as an alternative to mutual funds, giving users more flexibility in choosing themes to put their money in and in the duration they want to stay invested. But this is a tough field, even for mutual fund houses, with investors moving to less expensive, passive funds. While it got a lot of young investors interested, this player seems to be slowly making plans to transition into a mutual fund house. That is, the only chance of survival for it may be transitioning into a competitor it wanted to defeat.

At MC Insider , we keep a close watch on executive movements in the industry and the latest gupshup we are picking up is from the mutual funds space. We hear a couple of fresh senior level appointments are on the cards in the segment, with two MF houses likely to get new CIOs soon. Any guesses folks?

Active Pharma Ingredients are a big, big, growth area. If only there was a mildest hint the company manufacturers these, the share prices would have sky-rocketed a couple of years back, especially considering the China plus 1 angle . In the last two years, the market has become a lot more discerning to distinguish between companies that can continue to clock high growth and those that are valued highly for no commensurate growth. But this small firm has seen stock prices soar and how in the past few years on the back of better earnings growth. It looks like the run may continue unabated as word on D-street is that the company is all set to announce a big win soon.