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PhonePe, the fintech giant backed byWalmart, is preparing for a major initial public offering, aiming for a valuation of up to $10.5 billion (around ₹97,000 crore). This would be lower than the $12 billion valuation at which PhonePe last raised $100 million from private equity investors in 2023.The IPO will be entirely an offer for sale (OFS), with existing investors including WM Digital, Microsoft Global Finance, and Tiger Global planning to sell shares.

Mint on Friday on the sidelines of a press conference to announce a partnership with Salesforce. A supplementary power purchase agreement (SPPA) with Gujarat and other client states should happen “very quickly,” he said, declining to elaborate further.The ultra mega power project in the coastal town has been shut since July 2025 amid disagreements with client states—Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Haryana—over the pass through of the high cost of Indonesian coal.Analysts at brokerage IIFL say a combination of rising power demand ahead of summer and the possibility of higher fuel prices due to the war in West Asia could strengthen Tata Power’s negotiating position this time.

crisis in West Asia intensifying, there is lacklustre sentiment among both importers and exporters due to higher freight costs and logistical uncertainties. Things are likely to be clear in due course of time," said Vikas Jain, proprietor, Osho Marketing House, a Delhi-based export firm.“Though global wheat prices have increased, it could have been a good opportunity for Indian farmers and traders to earn better returns through exports.

Mint. Price was not a factor but the presentation on the screen definitely was. Like a moth to a light, the bright yellow colour drew her in and she tapped on it.That instinctive and irrational add-to-cart moment is exactly what Swiggy is betting Noice can engineer on a large scale.When the company rolled out the food and beverage (F&B) brand in the middle of last year, it did not resemble a routine back-end grocery experiment.

Mumbai: Sexual wellness brand Bold Care’s first brush with virality was in 2024, when it released a saas bahu style soap opera ad starring actor (and investor) Ranveer Singh, along with adult entertainment star Johnny Sins, for its condoms and other products. Since then, it has been investing in a series of campaigns featuring celebrities and influencers best known for speaking their mind and, sometimes, courting controversy.

Hotel chains are increasingly rolling out AI tools across various operations as rising costs and tighter margins push them to find efficiencies in existing systems. Global operators in India are scaling similar capabilities.

Write to Ian Salisbury at [email protected] U.S.-Israel war against Iran that began on Feb. 28 has investors worried about broader fallout. On Friday, oil prices hit a psychologically important $90 a barrel for the first time in two years as Kuwait cut output.

₹18,000 crore ($2 billion) in realised and potential equity value over the company’s lifecycle.Even if the company lists closer to $10.5 billion, a steeply marked down valuation at which the IPO is widely expected, the value of that pool could still be around ₹13,000 crore, or about $1.4 billion.Of that, the options that still exist today and can convert into shares in the future, could be worth roughly $500-600 million.While other tech firms also use Esops to retain top talent, PhonePe’s rewards to its employees have seeded at least half a dozen “deca-millionaires”, or very high-net-worth individuals, in its top deck.And thanks to the payments platform's extravagant Esop structure, its top leadership has stuck around from its early Flipkart-acquisition in 2016 to the cusp of its IPO. (Walmart Inc.

Fertilizer is the largest commodity, the global price of which has a direct bearing on subsidy bills. In the case of petroleum, central subsidy is limited to cooking gas and kerosene, and often, state-owned auto-fuel retailers absorb the volatility in global prices by spreading out retail fuel price adjustments.On Friday, the government assured adequate fertilizer availability for the upcoming kharif season starting June.

South Korea’s 16% stock plunge this past week. In the U.S., any inflation uptick could deprive investors of more interest-rate cuts. Or perhaps worse, the Federal Reserve could cut rates later this year, and depending on the circumstances, be judged by the bond market as giving President Donald Trump what he wants, but not necessarily giving the economy what it needs.A quick and tidy exit in Iran is no sure thing.

Bengaluru: Varun Dubey, who has spent the past decade moving between India’s consumer internet and healthcare worlds, now wants to build what he calls an “honest healthcare” hospital system—starting with a membership pass that covers consultations and doctor-prescribed diagnostics for a family.“The customer has three fundamental problems when it comes to core healthcare experience today…i.e. high quality care, seamless and easy to access as possible and of course, affordable,” Dubey said in an interview.Dubey’s argument is that India’s hospital experience today is broken due to crowded outpatient departments (OPDs), long waits, opaque billing and low trust arising from one underlying issue: the cost of setting up and running a hospital.That mismatch between what patients want and how hospitals are run, Dubey says, is why he is building SuperHealth.Launched in October, SuperHealth is positioning itself not as an OPD app but as a full hospital, trying to win patients on experience and trust—less wait times, clearer pricing, and fewer incentives for doctors to overprescribe.

Mint, citing low prices, adequate strategic reserves, and the government’s ability to cushion fuel shocks from spilling into retail prices.In January, the Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation, under a revised data series, stood at around 2.75%, significantly below the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) medium-term target of 4%.With inflation currently subdued and a newly introduced CPI series indicating broadly similar trends to the old base-year data, the economists said the starting point itself provides a strong buffer against external shocks, likely preventing any immediate pressure on retail inflation or RBI's monetary policy outlook.For 2025-26, the RBI has projected CPI inflation at 2.1%, with the March quarter at 3.2%. Inflation for the June and September quarters is seen at 4% and 4.2%, respectively, suggesting the current price environment is far more benign than during previous geopolitical shocks.“I think the starting point is more comfortable for RBI at this juncture, given that inflation is more manageable now compared with the Russia-Ukraine war, when global commodity prices surged sharply,” Anubhuti Sahay, head of India economic research at Standard Chartered Bank, said.Sahay added that policymakers are unlikely to rush to revise projections or change the policy stance until there is greater clarity on how long the war will last and how significantly it will disrupt global energy markets.

India’s telecom giants and global technology firms are locked in a tussle over pricing and regulation of the country’s business internet backbone.At the centre of the clash are Domestic Leased Circuits (DLCs)—dedicated, high-security broadband lines used by banks, data centres and enterprises. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is conducting its first review of these tariffs in more than a decade, which could slash price caps that have been unchanged since 2014.The total revenue earned by service providers from DLCs in FY 2023–24 is around ₹13,300 crore, which is approximately 60% higher than the revenue earned in FY 2012–13, according to Trai.Mobile operators, including Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel, are defending their turf, arguing that government intervention would amount to a subsidy for Big Tech.

crude oil to India.Higher oil and gas prices should force CGDs and oil marketing companies (OMCs) to raise prices of CNG and auto fuels. Nomura estimates that CGDs source 30%-40% of their natural gas requirement from imported LNG. As imported LNG prices rise (due to higher pricing and shipping costs), CGDs must raise the CNG price to maintain their Ebitda margins.

The Iran-US conflict has sent shockwaves through Indian markets, pushing the rupee to a record low of 92.32 and driving crude oil past $80 per barrel. As the Nifty 50 shed 2.1% in just four days, foreign investors pulled out over ₹11,700 crore, seeking safety in a strengthening dollar.With the Strait of Hormuz blockade threatening energy supplies and squeezing margins for oil and chemical firms, investors are caught between gold's safe-haven appeal and rising macroeconomic headwinds.Mintexplains what this nascent war and the resulting supply shocks mean for your portfolio and the road ahead for Indian equities.Since the Iran-US war began on 28 February, equity markets worldwide have fallen.The Nifty 50 index declined 2.1% between 28 February and 4 March, while the Nikkei fell 5.5%, the Hang Seng 4.5%, and the Kospi 8.9% over the same period.

For investors keen to move from commission-based mutual fund advisory to fee-only advice, a common question is: How can I shift my portfolio from a mutual fund distributor (MFD) to a registered investment adviser (RIA) without disrupting investments or triggering avoidable taxes?The shift essentially involves moving from a regular plan, where commissions are built into the expense ratio, to a direct plan, which excludes distributor commissions and typically has lower costs. In the latter, you pay a fixed fee to the RIA.Investors broadly have two options.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has lowered the repo rate by 125 basis points (bps) in this rate cut cycle and governor Sanjay Malhotra reiterated that rates will remain lower for longer. While banks have lowered both lending and deposit rates, these were not entirely in tandem.Amid all this, credit growth in the banking system continues to outpace deposit growth.

NEW DELHI: The heavy industries ministry has begun assessing proposals from state governments and state-run oil marketing companies to install charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EV) under the ₹10,900 crore PM E-Drive scheme, with the aim of disbursing about ₹80 crore by the end of FY26, according to two people aware of the development.The government has allocated ₹2,000 crore of the scheme’s overall outlay towards supporting the installation of over 72,000 EV chargers. It will cover 70-100% of the upstream costs of setting up charging stations in state-owned premises in cities and on highways, including bringing adequate grid power to the site, and 70% of the cost of actual chargers.The government roughly halved the benchmark costs of setting up public EV charging stations in 2025 from the 2022 estimates to ₹1.6 lakh for a 12-kW charger, ₹3.4 lakh for a 60-kW charger, ₹5 lakh for a 120-kW charger, ₹8 lakh for a 240-kW charger, and ₹12.5 lakh for a 360-kW charger.

₹25 lakh or accumulating ₹1 crore on retirement. Deciding what to do with such a lump sum can be overwhelming. Investing it all at once feels risky, and drawing regular income without depleting savings can be confusing.Two quiet yet powerful mutual fund tools address both problems: the systematic transfer plan (STP) and the systematic withdrawal plan (SWP).

₹815 crore on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s overseas visits since he took office in 2014, covering 78 countries across 99 trips, according to data shared in Parliament last month.The disclosures offer a detailed snapshot of how frequently he travels, which countries dominate his itinerary and what that outreach has cost the exchequer. Overseas travel has been a central plank of Modi’s diplomatic strategy, with the prime minister frequently engaging global leaders in person.A Mint analysis of the data shows that, adjusted for inflation, the total outlay amounts to just over ₹1,000 crore in current prices. In all, Modi has spent 352 days abroad across his three terms.

Oil and its derivatives account for 40-70% of raw material costs of these sectors, which leaves (their) margins vulnerable to rising crude prices,” said Devarsh Vakil, head of prime research at HDFC Securities.Indian markets have faced similar pressure before. When Brent crude surged 73% to a peak of $130 per barrel between December 2021 and March 2022, shortly after the Russia-Ukraine war began, India Inc.’s profit margins came under swift pressure.A Mint analysis of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data shows that operating profit margins of oil refiners, rubber product makers, tyre and tube manufacturers, and paint companies compressed by an average 140 basis points between the December quarter of FY22 and the June quarter of FY23.While most sectors began to feel mild pressure as early as Q4FY22, the squeeze peaked for rubber products and tyre and tube makers in Q1FY23.