Midcaps and smallcaps find favour

Thu, 4 Mar 11:30 am

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The Indian markets continued to remain volatile, with the benchmark index trading below the dotted line during the previous two hours of trade. Currently, selling activity being witnessed in stocks from the IT, telecom, auto, oil & gas and capital goods sectors is weighing heavy on the indices. Nevertheless, stocks from realty, consumer durables, healthcare and metal sectors are managing to garner investors’ interest.

The BSE-Sensex and the NSE-Nifty are currently trading lower by around 45 points and 18 points respectively. Nevertheless, stocks from the midcap and small cap spaces are currently trading in the green, with the BSE-Midcap and the BSE-Smallcap indices trading higher by 0.6% each. The rupee is trading at 45.78 to the US dollar.

According to a leading business daily, India’s largest public sector bank, SBI is planning to further revamp its employee base. To this end it has raised its hiring target from 11,000 to 25,000 in order to take care of retirements and new positions at newer branches. It may be noted that the bank is already in a recruitment phase currently and has recruited around 33,000 employees in the clerical cadre since 2007. By adding 25,000 more employees the recruitment figures will stand tall at 50,000 at the end of March 2011.

The increase in intake this year itself is aimed at reducing the time and cost in initiating a new hiring spree again next year. It may be noted that the cost for the clerical recruitment for the bank (along with its associates) is expected to be Rs 500 m in 2010. As the bank plans to increase its branch network three-folds to 50,000 by the end of current decade, it will require more hands to staff these branches. Currently it has 12,027 domestic and 141 overseas branches along with over 4900 belonging to its 6 associates. With bank consolidation plans underway, the bank also factored in hiring requirements at its associate banks while raising its recruitment target. While the growth plan is a long term positive, we believe that such rampant increase in branches as well as employee base will impact bank’s margins significantly in the medium term.

As per a leading business daily, Indian IT major Wipro has restructured its non-IT business along with rejiging its top leadership. In order to underpin its focus on ecology as a business stream, it has created a separate business vertical for eco-energy by splitting it from infrastructure engineering segment. It may be noted that lately eco-energy business gained importance in Wipro’s business strategy. It has built its offerings around multi-technology consulting and engineering practices for commercial, industrial and utility clients. Under infrastructure engineering business which includes hydraulics and water business, it plans to expand its global footprint besides increasing its market share. It has also made some changes in its top management along these business units.

In terms of its IT services, the company already generates 10% of its revenues from energy and utilities segment. It is betting big on green solutions in this vertical. The company aims at generating 10% of consulting revenues from green IT consulting in the next couple of years, reaching US$ 500 m revenue by 2010. We believe that focusing on green solutions as a driver for future growth will definitely help the company in the long term.