One councillor slammed scheme as ‘something out of post-war East Berlin’

More than 260 new homes have been approved on the former site of an award-winning building.

The old Adelphi and Centenary Building on Peru Street were demolished last year to make way for new housing. Now a brand new complex of three five to six storey apartment blocks with a total of 263 homes has been greenlit on the land.

The Centenary Building won the Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize in 1996, and was regarded as ‘the UK’s best new building’ at the time. But it was left sitting empty and unused for years before it was bulldozed in October last year.

Now ECF, a partnership between developers and government agencies, have permission to transform the area into two L-shaped blocks around a green courtyard with 74 and 77 one, two, and three-bedroom apartments, which will be available for sale and private rental; and a longer tower block with 112 affordable homes. The affordable homes will mostly be single bedroom units, with four two-bed apartments.

Mr Steve Thomas, a senior development officer for ECF, told a planning meeting on Wednesday, June 12, the development would introduce’ a strong place-making strategy’ to the area, by adding more green spaces, better pedestrian and cycle links, and more affordable homes.

Mr Thomas said: “The proposal has been put together through extensive consultation with the council and the local community, and the many benefits of this scheme include the regeneration of an underused brownfield site, well-designed and energy-efficient new homes, and the creation of several job opportunities for the local area both throughout the construction and beyond.”

The plans include closing off Peru Street to through traffic to turn part of the road into a little green space for residents. There will be eight accessible car parking spaces, though locals will have to primarily rely on the ‘well-connected, sustainable public transport links’ in the area.

The application received only one objection and was widely welcomed by councillors at a planning meeting on Wednesday, June 12.

However councillor Bob Clarke blasted the design of the building, saying: “This has no architectural value whatsoever. It’s a blot on the landscape, it’s just a block. These buildings never age well and I wish more could be done to cover it in some greenery. It looks like something out of post-war East Berlin.”

Others leapt to the building’s defence, arguing it ‘echoed the architectural language of the surrounding area’ and carried nods to the former uses of the site.

The application was passed, meaning another major part of the Salford Crescent regeneration is due to go ahead. The £2.5bn project by ECF – which is made up of urban developers Muse, Homes England, and L&G – aims to transform 240 acres of Salford around the university. A number of projects are already underway or nearing completion, such as Salford Rise, a ‘green walkway in the sky’ over Frederick Road. Plans have also been approved for 227 new homes at the former Farmer Norton car park.

To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more in your community, visit the Public Notices Portal.

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After one of its most volatile weeks in years, South Korea’s stock market is approaching a milestone it has long been chasing: a potential path into MSCI Inc’s developed-market status.

The Kospi has become the world’s best-performing major equity benchmark this year, surging more than 90% as investors piled into artificial-intelligence winners. Yet the rally has also turned Korea into one of the world’s most volatile stock markets. The benchmark has repeatedly triggered exchange safeguards in recent days, while swings have surged to levels rarely seen among major global indexes.

Now investors are awaiting MSCI’s annual market-classification review on June 23, when the index provider will decide whether Korea finally earns a place on the watchlist for developed-market status, the first step toward an eventual upgrade.

Most of the 15 investors and strategists interviewed by Bloomberg expect MSCI to keep Korea in the emerging-market camp for now, arguing that recent reforms need more time to prove their durability. But few doubt the direction. “It’s more of a matter-of-time issue,” said Young Jae Lee, senior investment manager at Pictet Asset Management. “Korea will become a developed market at least in the next couple of years. That’s my base case.”

The bigger question may be how much the label matters anymore.

Korea’s market has become synonymous with the global AI trade, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix accounting for more than half of the Kospi’s weighting. As investors chase exposure to the semiconductor boom, some argue the forces driving Korean stocks are becoming larger than any benchmark classification.
“It doesn’t matter in a sense that Korea is now such a global play,” said Arjun Jayaraman, portfolio manager at Causeway Capital Management. “It’s not about investing in Korea. It’s about investing in AI plays.”By traditional measures, Korea already looks like a developed market. The nation’s equity market has tripled in value over the past year to about $4.4 trillion, briefly overtaking India as the world’s sixth-largest. Its companies occupy critical positions in global semiconductor, battery and manufacturing supply chains.

A country with Korea’s massive footprint shifting classification is “unprecedented,” said Chetan Seth, Asia equity strategist at Nomura Holdings in Singapore. “No other country in recent times with Korea’s weight in existing indices has moved from one market classification to another.”

South Korea currently commands a 23% weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets index. By comparison, Greece and Israel, the two most recent nations to achieve developed-market status, boasted much smaller economies and index weights when they were promoted. The sticking point has long been accessibility for foreign investors. MSCI removed Korea from its developed-market watchlist in 2014, citing restrictions on currency trading and other market-access issues. Last year, the index provider again pointed to shortcomings in foreign-exchange reforms and compliance burdens. Since then, Korea has resumed short selling and is preparing to launch extended won trading hours in July, two reforms long sought by global investors. President Lee Jae Myung has also made capital-market reform a key policy priority.

Mumbai: Traders have piled into bullish derivative bets on banks, reversing some of the earlier bearish positions, as the Reserve Bank of India’s recent measures to mobilise foreign currency borrowings have brought lenders back to the forefront of the market’s rebound.

Bank stocks were among the top performers last week, with the Bank Nifty gaining 4.25%, outperforming the Nifty’s 1% rise. All constituents of the banking index, barring Yes Bank and PNB, advanced between 1% and 7%.

Analysts said several banking stocks have seen a combination of short covering and fresh long additions in recent sessions, a trend they expect could continue in the coming days. The bulk of the short covering happened in stock futures of the country’s largest lenders, ICICI Bank, HDFC, State Bank of India, Kotak Mahindra and Federal.

On Friday, the Bank Nifty jumped 3% to close at 56,814.8, while the Nifty ended 2% higher at 23,622.9.
The RBI’s FCNR(B) deposit rate mechanism is driving long delta additions in banking stocks, said Akshay Bhagwat, associate director – derivatives research at JM Financial Services. Long delta refers to a trade positioning for a stock or index to rise.

“Because this price rally was accompanied by a 3.53% increase in open interest, it confirms a long buildup, indicating that fresh buyers dominate the series moving into next week,” he said.
The central bank’s FCNR(B) measures are essentially aimed at helping banks raise more foreign currency deposits from NRIs at a lower cost. While flows from abroad are expected to support the weaker rupee, banks will be able to offer higher interest rates for these deposits with RBI absorbing hedging costs and easing regulatory requirements.The RBI’s FCNR(B) initiative could emerge as one of the most significant banking liquidity measures in recent years, said Manish Bhandari, CEO and portfolio manager, Vallum Capital.

“We expect the scheme to attract $35-40 billion of incremental inflows, against an existing FCNR deposit base of roughly $30 billion,” he said. “Banks with strong NRI franchises across the Gulf, North America, the UK, Singapore and Australia, extensive overseas networks, trade-finance capabilities and large foreign-currency loan books are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries.”

The measures have sparked one of the sharpest reversals of bearish derivative bets in banks in recent months, as the sector has taken the biggest hit of the foreign investors’ risk aversion to India because of its biggest weights on the stock indices.

“ICICI Bank, Federal Bank, SBI and Kotak Mahindra Bank saw the strongest unwinding, indicating bears exiting positions, while HDFC Bank stands out as the only major bank name showing sustained long additions and fresh bullish participation,” said Chandan Taparia, head of technical and derivatives research at Motilal Oswal Financial Services. He said the sector’s recent strength appears to be driven more by short covering than aggressive long build-up, with HDFC Bank being the notable exception.

Banks’ derivative positioning suggests these stocks could continue to outperform and attract buying interest in the near term, said Dhupesh Dhameja, derivatives analyst at Samco Securities.

Bhagwat expects HDFC Bank, Federal Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and AU Small Finance Bank to gain a further 6-8%.

Traders could be better off by staying away from the current bullish momentum in the stocks.

“The current setup favours a ‘Buy on Dips’ approach rather than chasing momentum at higher levels,” said Dhameja. “Improving put-call ratio (PCR), aggressive put accumulation, strengthening momentum indicators, broad-based participation from both private and PSU banks, and supportive futures positioning indicate that declines are likely to attract buying interest.” He said the bullish structure remains intact as long as the Bank Nifty sustains above 55,500 on a closing basis.

Four Vedanta Group firms — Vedanta Aluminium, Vedanta Power, Vedanta Oil & Gas, and Vedanta Iron & Steel — are set to debut on the BSE and NSE after a special pre-open session today, marking the final leg of the conglomerate’s mega demerger.

The Anil Agarwal-led group had announced in April that each eligible shareholder would receive one share in each of the four companies for every Vedanta share held on the record date, in what is among India’s biggest corporate restructurings in the metals and mining sector.

Vedanta had fixed May 1 as the record date for the much-awaited demerger. While Vedanta shares have already adjusted for the restructuring, investors are now awaiting the listing of the four spun-off entities.

4 Vedanta stocks to undergo price discovery in special pre-open session

The special pre-open session will run from 9 am to 10 am today on the NSE and BSE, after which trading in these stocks will commence. According to exchange notices, shares of Vedanta Oil & Gas, Vedanta Power, Vedanta Aluminium, and Vedanta Iron & Steel will initially be placed in the Trade-to-Trade (T2T) segment, where all transactions are settled through compulsory delivery.Also read: How will Vedanta demerger impact dividend payouts for shareholders?

Here’s a closer look at the four companies listing today and what analysts expect their debut valuations and share prices on Dalal Street to be.

Vedanta Aluminium Metal

Vedanta Aluminium Metal is the largest aluminium producer in India, according to the company. It produced more than half of India’s aluminium at 2.42 million tonnes in FY25, according to its website. It operates a 5 MTPA alumina refinery in Odisha’s Kalahandi district, along with the world’s largest aluminium plant at Jharsuguda, Odisha with 1.85 MTPA capacity. It also operates Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO) in Chhattisgarh.
Vedanta Aluminium has a vision to double the existing production capacity to 60 lakh tonnes per annum, deep backward integration and structural cost advantages.
ICRA recently removed the long-term rating of Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAML) from watch with developing implications, following greater clarity on the allocation of assets and liabilities under the ongoing demerger scheme of Vedanta Limited as well as the support framework across group entities. ICRA has also upgraded the rating and assigned a Stable outlook to the long-term rating.

Also read: At what price will each of the four new Vedanta companies list? Check cost of acquisition

Notably, Vedanta Aluminium Metal will likely list as the only large cap company among the four stocks today. Sunny Agrawal, Head of Fundamental Research at SBI Securities, said an investor can buy the shares of Vedanta Aluminium Metal on the back of robust capacity expansion of aluminium and strong LME Aluminium prices. He said that the fair value of Vedanta Aluminium Metal stands at Rs 489 apiece.

“Among the demerged businesses, Vedanta Aluminium stands out as the most attractive entity, with an expected listing valuation of Rs 400+ per share. This is supported by its strong contribution to group revenues and margins, along with favourable industry dynamics such as tight global supply, elevated aluminium prices, and ongoing capacity expansions driving volume growth,” said ICICI Direct in a report.

Vedanta Power

Vedanta Power has more than 4 GW of installed capacity in four strategic assets in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. It has several long-term and mid-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with state utilities.

Its portfolio comprises Vedanta Power Talwandi Sabo Thermal Plant in Punjab (1,980 MW), Vedanta Power Meenakshi Energy, in Andhra Pradesh (1,000 MW), Vedanta Power Sakti, Chhattisgarh (600 MW operational with another 600 MW under commissioning), and Vedanta Power Jharsuguda Thermal Plant, Odisha (600 MW).

Also read: ICRA removes Vedanta from watch with developing implications

According to Agarwal from SBI Securities, the fair value of Vedanta Power stands at Rs 44 per share. For Vedanta Power, Emkay estimates a share price of around Rs 51.7 per share. Kotak Institutional Equities see the stock at Rs 60 per share, while Nuvama’s valuation implies a value of around Rs 47 per share. CLSA’s estimate corresponds to roughly Rs 35 per share.

Vedanta Oil & Gas

Vedanta Oil & Gas claims to be India’s leading private sector upstream player, as it aims to scale towards 300,000 to 500,000 barrels per day with an investment of $5 billion. “A little over a decade ago, Cairn was valued at $14.5 billion. “When we acquired Cairn, its market capitalization was half of the asset value. Today, Cairn has grown manifold, added many more reserves as well as a natural gas portfolio,” the company had said in a press release earlier this year.

Also read: Vedanta share price adjusts 63% as it trades ex-demerger. What’s next for 21 lakh shareholders?

Vedanta in May said that its average gross operated production for the full year stands at 87.2 kboepd. According to Sunny Agrawal, Head of Fundamental Research at SBI Securities, Vedanta Oil & Gas commands a fair value of Rs 42 per share.

Vedanta Iron & Steel

Vedanta Iron & Steel has operations spanning India and Africa, and is focused on iron ore exploration, mining and processing. It also produces high-quality steel, wire rods, TMT bars, pig iron, ductile iron (DI) pipes, ferro-silicon, cement and metallurgical coke.

According to Sunny Agrawal, Vedanta Iron & Steel commands a fair value of Rs 19 per share. The iron and steel business is likely to see little favour with investors as larger and more focused players make for a stronger investment case, according to experts.

Also read: 4 demerged units of Vedanta to make D-Street debut on Monday

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)