India Financial News

Indian tax authorities are seeking dues of $101 million from education-technology company Byju's, once the country's biggest startup which is now undergoing an insolvency process, claim documents reviewed by Reuters on Friday showed. Backed by General Atlantic, Byju's was valued at $22 billion in 2022, but has seen its fortunes dwindle due to many regulatory issues and more recently a dispute with U.S. lenders who are demanding $1 billion in unpaid dues, triggering the company's insolvency that led to an assets freeze.

Lotus Global Investments and LTS Investment Fund, have moved the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) seeking relief from compliance with the September 8 deadline, to liquidate their Indian listed securities portfolio, beyond the specified thresholds set by the Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi). Both these funds were linked to the Adani Group in the January 2023 Hindenburg report. These funds have sought time till March 31, 2025, to comply with Sebi's new foreign portfolio investors (FPI) concentration norms to unwind their portfolios.

Over the past two weeks, long-standing China bulls UBS Global Wealth Management, Nomura Holdings Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have all downgraded the country’s equities, citing concerns ranging from the property-led demand slump to piecemeal stimulus measures and geopolitical tensions ahead of the US elections.

Indian markets experienced selling pressure throughout the week amid muted global sentiments and profit taking in overheated segments at higher levels. During the week, about 45 smallcap stocks have delivered double digit weekly returns with four of them offering over 25% returns.

Bina Modi has been reappointed as managing director of Godfrey Phillips India as she got the required 75% of the company's shareholders to vote in her favour at the culmination of the company's annual general meeting on Friday, as per a stock exchange disclosure. The widow of KK Modi will turn 80 next week and is locked in a boardroom battle with her sons Samir and Lalit Modi, who are contesting her control over a family trust that they want dissolved.

iPhone 15 Pro Max by ditching the 128GB variant of the smartphone and instead starting with a 256GB one. Notably, the iPhone 15 Pro Max started with a base storage of 256GB and came at the same price as its predecessor for the 256GB variant.The Trendforce report suggests that while the price of the iPhone 16 Pro could increase on paper, this could be mitigated for users by the addition of a premium tetraprism periscope lens and 256GB of base storage.Moreover, Apple's choice of 256GB base storage for the iPhone 16 Pro could have a major impact on next year's iPhone line-up.

Semiconductor Mission is likely to receive a second budgetary allocation of up to $ 10 billion, a senior official said. The mission may require this funding if the Centre approves a mega chip fabrication unit by Israeli firm Tower Semiconductor and the Adani Group along with a host of other proposals which are being currently evaluated, top officials aware said. The government will have to seek fresh funding under the ISM as it has almost exhausted the funds in the first phase which saw approvals of $11 billion, they added. This includes the chip fabrication unit announced by the Tata Group as well as four other proposals for chip assembly.

₹25 per kg, before banning its exports in December. The ban was lifted in May 2024 with a minimum export price of $550 per tonne and a 40% export duty. Any crop damage from excessive rains could push prices higher “significantly", the second person added.

₹3,500 over and above its regular fare, Air India Express tagged its business class seats at about ₹16,000 in the Delhi-Mumbai sector. That’s still lower than the ₹26,000 charged by its parent entity, the Tata Group-owned full service Air India, for a business class seat on the same route. “We would have replaced these business class seats earlier itself if these replacements were available earlier," a senior Air India Express executive said on condition of anonymity.

aggregators like BillDesk and CCAvenue have received notices from the goods and services tax authorities, demanding GST on the fee they charged merchants for processing digital transactions of under Rs 2,000, three people in the know told ET. “Yes, we have received a show-cause-cum-demand notice,” said Vishwas Patel, joint managing director of Infibeam Avenues which runs payments processor CCAvenue, responding to ET’s queries. “Our teams have responded to the notice,” he said. BillDesk did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Amazon and Flipkart, are tipped to outdo brick-and-mortar shops in wooing smartphone buyers this festive season, offering discounts and deals even the most fastidious of shoppers can't seemingly refuse. Experts believe the big guns of e-commerce will corner nearly three-fifths of the smartphone market this festive season that begins with Ganesh Chaturthi. Discounts and deals, customised through smart and targeted marketing, are aimed at offsetting the sluggish start to the year for the category that remains among the biggest discretionary purchases in India. Better pricing deals from phone makers for the online channels are expected to tilt the scales in their favour. «Overall, the split is expected to be 50:50 for the second half of the year, but online is expected to grow faster than offline during the festive season because of the ongoing tiff with retailers over preferential pricing which is going to increase during the festive season sales,» said Upasana Joshi, research manager, IDC India.

PhysicsWallah is in the final stages of closing a $150-million funding round led by Asian hedge fund Hornbill Orchid that will value the Noida-headquartered edtech unicorn at $2.8 billion, over 150% higher than its previous valuation, said people briefed on the developments. While Hornbill Orchid is likely to invest $70-80 million, a big chunk of the remaining amount is expected to come from venture capital firm Lightspeed that has previously backed edtech rival Byju’s, they said. “The round is nearly done and Hornbill Orchid is leading it, putting the biggest amount of capital in the round,” one of the persons said.

Tata Sons FY24 annual report. The group's digital and electronics business grew 148% to Rs 1,612 crore, with net losses widening to Rs 2,223 crore from Rs 1,723 crore. Tata Sons is the holding company of the Tata Group. Air India, privatised in 2022, recorded its highest-ever consolidated revenue of Rs 51,365 crore in FY24, a 24% increase over the previous year, driven by a growth in capacity to 105 billion available seat kilometres (ASKM) and an improvement in passenger load factor to 85%.

Coca-Cola is «segmenting India in clusters as there will be parts of the country that will accelerate that growth and capability faster than others», Henrique Braun, global EVP and president, international development at Coca-Cola, said at Barclays' Global Consumer Staples conference late Thursday. «We are segmenting the country in clusters and we truly believe that there will be parts of India that will accelerate that growth and that capability in a faster way than others. That's how we're going to start benchmarking internally,» he said. Large consumer products makers including Unilever, Nestle and Godrej Consumer Products have echoed similar views on the India market, which has been showing sharply divergent demand recovery trends, or a K-shaped recovery with uneven growth patterns post the Covid-19 pandemic.

Peak XV Partners, formerly Sequoia Capital India and SEA, on Friday, divested a little over 22 per cent stake in Indigo Paints to investors like Morgan Stanley, Mercer and HDFC MF for Rs 1,557 crore via open market transactions. Venture capital firm Peak XV Partners through its two affiliates, Peak XV Partners Investments IV and Peak XV Partners Investments V, offloaded a total of 1.05 crore shares, amounting to a 22.04 per cent stake in Pune-headquartered Indigo Paints, as per the bulk deal data on the NSE.

medical devices associations to adopt a uniform code for marketing practices similar to the one for pharmaceuticals companies, prohibiting them from organising workshops abroad for healthcare professionals and offering them hotel stay, expensive cuisine or monetary grants. As part of its bid to check unethical practices in the pharma industry, the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) has asked medical devices companies to upload the Uniform Code for Marketing Practices in Medical Devices (UCMPMD) 2024 on their website along with the detailed procedure for lodging of complaints with link to the UCMPMD portal of the department. It also asked companies to constitute an Ethics Committee for Marketing Practices in Medical Devices (ECMPMD).

Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have unveiled a host of limited-period offers that bundle generous dollops of extra data, over-the-top (OTT) streaming apps, gift vouchers and extended pack validity to hold on to their top-end, revenue-generating prepaid users, in the aftermath of the recent headline rate hikes. A day after Jio offered additional benefits worth ₹700 on its ₹899, ₹999 and ₹3,599 prepaid packs as part of its eighth anniversary offer, Airtel and Vi on Friday rolled out their own competitive festive offers to counter Jio amid rising competition in the battle to retain revenue-generating prepaid users. The latest battle to retain high-value prepaid users between India's top three telcos comes even as loss-making Vi itself is struggling to hold onto its own users. Vi's stock plunged almost 11.5% to close at ₹13.36 on the BSE on Friday, just days after its revenue market share (RMS) plummeted to an all-time low of 15% in the fiscal first quarter, as per latest data collated by the telecom regulator.

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militants fired two rockets in Manipur's Bishnupur district on Friday. According to officials, security forces are on high alert as tension has gripped the Imphal Valley region following high-tech attacks over the past few days. The rocket attacks came after drones were used to drop bombs at two nearby places in Imphal West district earlier this week.

manufacturing facility being set up in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, a top official of the Belgium-headquartered engineering company said. It aims to be the lowest cost manufacturer of electrolysers and plans to use the India plant an export hub, Francois Michel, chief executive of John Cockerill Group, said. The company also plans to expand its operations into steel, energy and defence, and triple its workforce in two years, he said.