Coronavirus unties the wedding business knot amid lockdown extension

At stake is the livelihood of millions of gig workers who provide wedding-related services - jewellers, designers, tailors, caterers, pavilion and tent providers and so on.

Sindoori and Krishna flew from New York to Chennai for their big fat wedding at their hometown on March 30. Nearly 1,200 guests were invited and one of the largest venues in Chennai was booked. But Covid-19 forced them to postpone the celebrations.

Thousands of other families across India took similar decisions as social distancing rules kicked in and state governments imposed restrictions on gatherings at weddings to no more than 10 people. But the search for alternative auspicious wedding dates is the least of the problems afflicting an industry that KPMG estimates is worth around $50 billion a year.

At stake is the livelihood of millions of gig workers who provide wedding-related services — jewellers, designers, tailors, caterers, pavilion and tent providers and so on. This industry is highly fragmented, but employs a sizeable chunk of the gig workers.

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Rough industry estimate suggests that India hosts 10-12 million weddings every year. Now cancellations are running into the thousands. Kanika Subbiah, founder, Wedding Wishlist, said her company was organising nearly 30 weddings in November. In March, the number slid to four and in April just one.

“The industry is feeling the pinch. Weddings have just stopped. Most people have postponed their plans and the few, who are going ahead, have made it a smaller event. The industry is seeing a big blip in terms of revenue. Thankfully, the weddings are only getting postponed, not cancelled,” she said.

Cheering for fantasy sport: Gaming platforms see growth amid lockdown

Fantasy sports, where fans create their own virtual teams made up of real sportspersons, have been growing in popularity in India.

Krishan, 28, has a new favourite sports star. It’s Franklin Session, a professional basketball player with Taiwan’s Super Basketball League (SBL). With most of the popular sporting events cancelled in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus, fantasy sports fans like Krishan, who is from Karnal in Haryana, have started putting their money on the few sports leagues that are still active, including the SBL, Belarus Premier League (BPL) and Nicaragua's top division football league, Liga Primera.

Fantasy sports, where fans create their own virtual teams made up of real sportspersons, have been growing in popularity in India. Apart from cricket and kabaddi, fantasy sports titles are designed for many other sports such as football and basketball.

“With most of the popular leagues and sporting events having either been postponed or cancelled, some of the smaller leagues are gaining popularity amongst fans of fantasy sports,” says Sudhanshu Gupta, chief operating officer, at gaming platform Paytm First Games. “However, the total number of users showing interest in these leagues is fractional compared to the more popular leagues.”

The unique game play model of fantasy sports is central to their popularity. Typically, fans create their own team made up of real-life players from upcoming matches. These virtual teams garner points based on the actual performance of the players during the real matches. Users whose teams perform well are given points, and those who feature at the top of the list, win actual cash rewards.

The key to success in fantasy sport lies in selecting the right players. This is where technologies like big data and analytics come into play. The gaming platforms feed information about the teams, and players’ performances are evaluated on various metrics with the help of the open source and paid software available in the market.

DHFL crisis: Banks stare at huge provision burden if fraud is established

KPMG did a forensic audit on DHFL. Its draft report has startling findings and says DHFL could have diverted funds to promoter-led entities.

Banks which have loaned to beleaguered mortgage lender DHFL might have to provide for the exposure within weeks, if the account is treated as a fraudulent one after accountancy entity KPMG’s finding.

KPMG did a forensic audit on DHFL. Its draft report has startling findings and says DHFL could have diverted funds to promoter-led entities.

Banks have combined exposure of Rs 38,342 crore to DHFL, in the form of term loans, non-convertible debentures and commercial paper, according to the draft debt resolution plan.

A senior executive with a South-based public sector bank said: "While activity relating to restructuring of DHFL is still in a work-in-progress state, banks have to take a call on whether to get the Wadhawans (promoter family) to cooperate, and begin recoveries, or declare the account as fraud if diversion is established. Declaration of the account as fraud would create a burden of provisioning as early as the third quarter (October-December) of the current financial year.” A senior banker with a Mumbai-based public sector bank said the draft resolution plan itself envisaged a provision for haircuts (loan writeoffs), of about Rs 16,000 crore. Thus the burden is anticipated. But, if the account is declared as fraud, the provisioning might go up and be spread over four quarters. It will largely depend on how the Reserve Bank of India looks at the resolution plan and fund diversion issue.

The DHFL board of directors met on Wednesday and took cognisance of key observations from the draft report. KPMG's services were commisisoned by Union Bank of India, lead banker of the consortium, on behalf all its members.

“The board has directed the company to review the key observations,” the company said in an exchange filing.

DHFL's debt dues were Rs 83,873 crore as of July 6. Its loan assets were Rs 89,476 crore — the retail book being Rs 35,233 crore, the rest being wholesale loans.

Business Standard