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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: A clutch of private equity firms including Multiples Private Equity, Warburg Pincus, KKR and Kedaara Capital are evaluating a stake in jewellery brand Giva in an $80-100 million deal, three people familiar with the matter told Mint.“The company is expected to see an uptick in its valuation and is seeking a little over ₹6,000 crore for this round,” the first of the three persons cited earlier said, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. The second person said the round is largely primary (about 75%) with a small secondary component that is likely to see early investors like A91 Partners and Sixth Sense Ventures exit their stake in part or full as the structures are still being decided.“The company plans to use the funds towards expansion plans including opening new stores, expanding inventory lines and manufacturing capabilities.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi’s) measures to cool the retail frenzy in options trading appear to have begun yielding results, with small-trader participation declining almost 20% in FY26 from the previous year.Equity options, which comprise index and stock options, are the most widely traded derivative products within the futures and options (F&O) segment. The fall in participation is thus a clear outcome of Sebi’s measures, experts said.According to NSE data, the number of investors trading less than ₹10,000 each on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) fell by two-fifths to 450,000 in FY26, from 780,000 in FY25, according to data from the stock exchange.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Tea cafe chain Chaayos, backed by investors including Tiger Global and Elevation Capital, has appointed Avendus as an advisor to raise $50-70 million in a fresh funding round, two people familiar with the matter told Mint.“The company mandated Avendus a few months ago and the deal has been formally launched. While the exact structures are yet to be decided, several private equity and growth stage funds have been tapped as part of the process,” said one of the people cited above, adding that the company plans to use the funds for expansion.The round is expected to be a mix of primary and secondary.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.KKR & Co-backed Kota-based test preparation company Resonance Eduventures Ltd. is nearing an asset reconstruction company (ARC)-led debt resolution that may see lenders taking about 80% haircut on principal claims, according to two people aware of the matter.“Only one ARC has bid for the debt and the deal is nearing completion where it will acquire a majority of the debt. Though the final negotiations on the terms of the deal will decide closure timelines,” said the first person cited above.The proposed transaction comes amid stress in India’s once-booming offline coaching sector.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Low rainfall may hit India’s water reservoir replenishment, raising concerns among farmers and policymakers. Water reservoir levels stand at 44.7% of total capacity as of 9 April, better than last year, but experts warn that weak rainfall could hurt irrigation, fuelling worries over farm output and inflation in Asia’s third-largest economy. Mint explores.As per the Central Water Commission(CWC), water level in 166 key reservoirs stands at 44.7% of total live capacity, higher than last year (38%) and above the normal benchmark of 35%.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Pocket FM, an audio storytelling platform, said its users in India and the US are getting increasingly comfortable with microtransactions— paying per episode or series—giving it a monetization engine that differs from the classic subscription business.The company’s recent growth reflects how microtransactions and the deeper use of AI across content creation, editing and creator tools have started to scale up together, chief operating officer Lalit Gangwar said.“Pocket FM is best understood as a microtransaction-led audio storytelling business rather than a pure subscription model,” Gangwar said. “Listeners typically start free, get hooked on serialized stories or series, and then keep returning to unlock the next episode or story arc.”The company doubled its annualized revenue run-rate (ARR) to over $400 million ( ₹3,725 crore) in the past year, after taking six years to reach its first $200 million.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: A clutch of India's top private banks will decide by the end of next year who their new chief executives would be, and while the incumbents remain eligible, industry experts are keen on clarity over the second line of leadership.Chief executive officers (CEOs) of five prominent private sector banks —HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and IDFC First Bank—will require regulatory nod for another term. While the board of ICICI Bank has already approved a shorter-than-usual two-year term for CEO Sandeep Bakhshi, HDFC Bank’s Sashidhar Jagdishan is willing to serve another term.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd made a striking recovery in FY26. Consolidated revenue increased 21% year-on-year to ₹1,165 crore, and Ebitda margin rose 575 basis points (bps) to 19%.Its growth portfolio, comprising products other than its flagship Almond Drops Hair Oil (ADHO), recorded annual sales of ₹225 crore, which the company aims to more than double to ₹500 crore over the next three years.The core Bajaj ADHO brand recorded revenue growth of more than 20% for the full year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.If Vedanta’s challenge to lenders’ approval of Adani Enterprises’ ₹15,000-crore resolution plan for Jaiprakash Associates Ltd (JAL) succeeds, it could redefine lenders’ wide powers under the “commercial wisdom” doctrine in the country’s bankruptcy regulation, lawyers said.Lawyers say the Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta's challenge is serious and, if successful, could force lenders to better explain their decisions, especially when choosing a lower-value plan based on factors like upfront cash and faster payments.“If Vedanta succeeds, the case would represent a reconsideration of the commercial wisdom doctrine,” said V. Aneesh, partner at CMS IndusLaw.Vedanta is challenging the committee of creditors' (CoC) approval for Adani’s plan before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), saying its higher bid was unfairly rejected."Commercial wisdom” is a court-developed legal principle, not expressly defined in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU: Wealthy Indians are spending more overall, but a smaller share of that spending is going to retail stores selling goods like clothing and gadgets.As incomes rise for affluent households, they are increasingly spending on travel, fine dining and curated experiences such as concerts and wellness retreats, even as they continue to purchase high-value premium goods.In response, retailers are accelerating efforts to add experiential formats, from curated in-store services to immersive store environments, as they strive to stay relevant in a consumption landscape increasingly driven by engagement rather than transactions.New data from Visa Consulting & Analytics (VCA), shared with Mint, shows retail’s share of wallet drops from nearly 50% among emerging affluent consumers to about 28% for the ultra-wealthy, as spending on travel and experiences rises sharply.“Affluence is not an absolute state defined by income. It’s defined by how and where people spend.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.All new steel plants opening till the year 2030 may have to mandatorily use 30% domestic coking coal, under a plan to reduce import dependence and boost local coal use. Currently, steel plants use a maximum of 20% domestic coal in their operations.The blending mandate is expected to reduce the cost of importing coking coal by almost 25%, two people aware of the plan said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India's top private lenders, led by HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, reported strong growth numbers in the quarter just gone by but have turned cautious on business prospects in fiscal 2027 as the West Asia war and consequent economic disruptions stoke uncertainty.While domestic demand trends have been robust so far, war-related tensions cloud visibility on future growth and lending, especially to small and medium enterprises and export-oriented companies.HDFC Bank’s loans grew 12% on year to ₹29.6 trillion as at the end of March 2026, whereas deposits were 14% higher at ₹31 trillion. On its post-earnings media call Saturday, managing director and CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan stated that it would be difficult to predict the future pace of growth given the war even though expansion is expected to continue.“The trajectory is the right path in terms of positive momentum and we shall calibrate that as we get more clarity from the macro indicators over a period of time,” Jagdishan said, adding that so far the impact from the geo-political situation has been minimal.Jagdishan said bank clients have seen a certain level of disruption but what is really encouraging is their resilience.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Opportunistic investors who traded for only a single day constituted almost a whopping one-fourth of the 35.8 million active retail investors on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) last fiscal year, data in the bourse's monthly Market Pulse issue showed.Even when aggregated, investors trading up to 10 days constituted 69% of the total active retail base. This reveals a "highly skewed, long-tailed pattern, where bulk of investors trade only a handful of days in a year, while a very small proportion participates regularly," according to NSE's Economic Policy & Research Department (NSE EPR), which prepared the data.In absolute terms, those trading for just one day stood at 8.43 million investors, comprising 24% of the total individual investor base of 35.84 million.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Consensus earnings estimates for the fourth quarter of FY26 point to double digit growth, albeit at a lower level than the previous quarter due to the impact of the West Asia war and a high base effect, says Satish Ramanathan, chief investment officer-equity at JM Financial Asset Management Company in an interview. Leading companies may emerge better given superior pricing power.Asked whether it is time for foreign portfolio investors to return to Indian equity markets, Ramanathan reply was: “…we believe Indian equity markets are now reasonable as regards valuations and are poised to benefit from a diversified economy and domestic market.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Air India has said it will complete the retrofit of its legacy aircraft by 2029, nearly two years later than originally planned, after supply-chain constraints slowed its fleet overhaul plans. The final phase of the programme will cover 19 wide-body jets starting in the second half 2027 and is expected to take up to two years to complete, a senior executive said on Sunday.“There are some 777 Boeing aircraft which will be sent for retrofit in the second half of 2027 and these will be ready in the next 18 to 24 months… so by 2029.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Even as original video and audio content struggle for attention in a crowded digital ecosystem, a new threat is compounding the problem: a surge of low-cost, artificial intelligence (AI)-generated material that is reshaping discovery, monetization and trust across platforms.Often dubbed “AI slop”, this content is mass-produced, repetitive and generic, flooding feeds and pushing higher-quality work out of view. For creators, the immediate hit is visibility: strong content gets buried under volume, making consistent engagement and monetization harder to sustain in a market where revenue is already concentrated among a small fraction of players.One common manifestation of AI-generated content is the proliferation of cover versions of popular songs, often created and distributed at scale using AI tools.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU/MUMBAI: Digital insure-tech firm Acko has let go of about 60 employees, roughly 5% of its workforce, as it undergoes a structural realignment with a greater focus on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into its operations, multiple people familiar with the matter said. Affected employees are expected to remain with the company until the end of June, the people added.The job cuts come alongside the departure of chief marketing officer Ashish Mishra, who spent nearly five-and-a-half years at Acko after joining in August 2020.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Bengaluru: Organized jewellers are pushing lightweight designs, price-lock schemes and new launches amid volatile gold prices ahead of Akshaya Tritiya.The push comes amid sharp volatility in gold prices following the West Asia war, weighing on entry-level demand. Prices have swung widely over the past three months—from a record ₹1.75 lakh per 10gm in January to about ₹1.31 lakh in March, with intermittent rebounds and intraday drops of up to 5%.Akshaya Tritiya, which will be celebrated on Sunday, 19 April, isconsidered auspicious for buying gold.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sought the latest quarterly profit-and-loss (P&L) statements of clients from top brokers to assess the full-year financial impact of equity derivatives trading on individual investors, according to two broking officials."The regulator had directed us to submit the data sometime last week," said one of the officials, requesting anonymity."The January-March data of the previous fiscal year has been called for by Sebi, which will give them a view of the full year's P&L. Earlier, we had submitted Q1-Q3 data after the end of each quarter," said the second official.An email sent to Sebi went unanswered till press time.Alarmed by losses of individuals trading in the equity derivatives segment (EDS), Sebi has been requisitioning quarterly P&L data from the top 10 equity brokers whose clients account for 90% of the derivatives volumes on NSE and BSE, per the second official.The regulator had used the data for two studies—one in September 2024 and the other in July last year—to analyse the P&L of individual traders from FY22 through FY25.The studies showed that individual or retail traders suffered rising losses during this period.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Centre is exploring plans to sharply raise the national daily minimum wage to ₹350-450, at a time workers’ protests have prompted wage hikes in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.The Union labour ministry is working on fixing minimum wages for all workers in skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled categories, two people aware of the development said. Once a national floor is set, states will be compelled to revise their minimum wages accordingly, as wages cannot be set below the national floor.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Nuvoco Vistas Corp. Ltd’s March quarter (Q4FY26) Ebitda touched a record quarterly high of ₹587.6 crore, aided by better realizations, exceeding Bloomberg’s consensus estimate by 5%.