Businesses looking to diversify find room for growth in hospitality space

The hotel will be owned by realty developer Prestige Group, the American firm that operates hotel chains like JW Marriott and W Hotels, said.

“We have been ready for about a year now to tick all the boxes and we will be definitely looking at serving the public sector more. Not only that, if you look at the way the world is evolving with generative AI tools that are coming in this year, we expect to come to market with a number of these tools, well protected through our trust layer to ensure that the risks are also mitigated while we are using these tools.”

34 hotels were inaugurated and 2,400 rooms were added to the organized hotel business in Q2 FY23, with over 80% of these properties in tier II and tier III cities.

Many chains looking to double signings as pent-up demand strong, say players.

Though bankers remain broadly upbeat about 2024, even they admit that after months of headfakes failed to sustain activity, a true return to health could take months. It would be premature to say that there's a normalized IPO market right around the corner, said Eddie Molloy, Morgan Stanley's co-head of equity capital markets Americas.

In the last two years, every sector has come into focus at one point of time or the other. Some came into limelight due to the fact of real positive changes in the fundamental operating matrix of that sector. While others came into focus just because of too much liquidity chasing Indian paper. In the case of the pharma sector, after years of consolidation, valuation readjustment and regulatory learning which altogether led to positive change in the fundamentals, the stocks made a comeback. It is almost a period of six to eight years that the industry is back on the list where there are more positive developments than negative. These changes have come after the management of a large number of pharma companies learnt the lesson hard way. The lessons that expansion based on PPT presentations on market growth are probably not the best way to run business, rather ensuring compliance to regulatory requirements is more important. So sectors like pharma which have seen a very long phase of business remodelling and valuation readjustment need to be brought back on the watch list.

Indian markets are likely to continue their rally thanks to benign liquidity, stronger-than-expected results so far in the current quarter, and diminishing pressures on pricing. Underperforming sectors such as pharmaceuticals as well as capital goods, consumer durables and defence companies offer good opportunities. Stocks of safe bets, like ITC, Britannia and HUL, are doing well due to favourable valuations and strengthening ownership in a scenario of intense uncertainty before the election.

Speaking at AIF & PMS Conclave 1.0 Summit, Sharma said the Indian market offers a huge opportunity in terms of bottom up companies. Market opportunities in India are huge. Irrespective of foreign flows, India has done well and will continue to do well.

Deviations in actual conditions from expectations of the consensus tend to rattle markets, resulting in sharp moves up and down. This explains the current volatility in global and domestic markets.

Agarwal noted that the government and banks are comfortable giving clearances and funding to the public sector, whereas the case is not the same for the private sector entrepreneurs.