The Reserve Bank of India has approved the proposal of Titan Industries to hedge more gold in the international market, thereby helping the country’s largest jewellery company save on its finance costs and avoid the risk of recording mark-to-market loss. The company’s existing lease contracts expired at the end of January. Managing director of the company Bhaskar Bhat said RBI allowed the company an increase in hedging limit from the current four tonne to nine tonne, the inventory currently with the Bangalore-based company. Experts believe this development would be a big breather for the company as failure to have this approval in place would have exposed half of the gold it has in stock to daily commodity price fluctuations, thereby leading to a mark-to market loss and cut its earnings multiple. Titan is a joint venture between the Tata group and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation and it gets threefourths of its revenue from jewelry.
