Looking for a company in finance, insurance, 68, blue eyes?

In edition #21 of Better Markets Digest, we talk about:

- LIC may make big money

- Zomato trying to pull off another Grofers

Big Numbers:

• Coca-Cola India is looking to sell a minority stake in Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, following PepsiCo's model of outsourcing bottling operations. Potential investors — including Jubilant Group, Dabur, Pidilite Industries, and Asian Paints —- have been approached for an investment of $800 million to $1 billion.
• Vi (Vodafone Idea) is seeking to secure Rs. 23,000 crore in term loans from lenders and is requesting Rs. 10,000 crore in bank guarantees to enhance its telecom infrastructure to compete with Jio and Airtel.

• India is expected to add 30-35 GW of renewable energy capacity in FY25, significantly surpassing last year's addition of 18.4 GW. In FY24, renewable sources contributed 71% to the total 26 GW of new power generation capacity.

• Shares of Hyundai Motor, South Korea’s carmaker, surged following its filing for a $3 billion IPO for its India unit. If approved by regulators, this would mark India's largest IPO since the state-owned insurance behemoth, LIC's $2.7 billion listing in 2022.

Maximising shareholder value

What happens when a lot of people keep paying you money regularly and you don’t even have to return it? Well, at least not to everyone? What do you do with the money that you receive?

If you are smart, you try to grow it—savings, stock markets, real estate, and government securities. If you have been doing this consistently for 68 years, you might have even become one of the biggest investors of all time.?

I’m talking about LIC, your dad’s favourite “investment”.

It’s made the news this week because it’s going to make a hell of a lot of money. But it’s not because of the policies they are selling. It’s got to do something with the properties they hold.

You see, when you have a lot of cash, you diversify and invest your money in a lot of places. And LIC has been doing that, as I said earlier, for 68 years. This has made LIC the third-largest landlord in the country . They own the crème de la crème of buildings and lands in India.

LIC might sell some of this real estate — which could be worth up to $7 billion. This may make their shareholders (largest holding: Govt of India) happy.

Extroverting

After letting us indulge in our cravings from the comfort of our couch, Zomato now wants us to go outside. The company now wants to focus on the “Going out” vertical.

While Zomato already offers “dining out” services, these only account for ~2% of its overall income (who in their right minds wants to get off the couch, after all?). The company now wants to capture the movie-going crowd and events—from concerts to flea markets. To achieve this, Zomato is in talks with Paytm to acquire its ticketing business.

It seems like “going out” might become a good chunk of the business going forward, considering the company’s CFO said this in Q3 FY24’s earnings call :

“On Going-out, we have launched our events ticketing platform in nine cities in India - we now have a separate ‘Events’ tab on our Zomato app in these cities.”

Can they really make people go out, though? Or are we just too lazy? We’ll know soon enough.

Chart of the day:

Before publishing this, I was about to write: Quick commerce was nonexistent 9 years ago in India. But a colleague of mine told me, “Quick commerce has existed for as long as Kirana shops have been around.”

Consider that: before internet-based commerce, you would just dial up your grocer and ask them to deliver, or go out and get things for yourself “under 10” minutes.