FIVE Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When mutual funds start accumulating a stock, especially in the small-cap space, it's not by accident.Fund managers spend weeks, sometimes months, doing the kind of due diligence most retail investors simply don't have the time or resources for.So when fresh shareholding data shows a fund quietly building a position in a small-cap name, it's worth paying attention.Here we look at four such small-cap companies.These stocks are filtered using Equitymaster’s stock screener: Smallcap Stocks Recently Bought by Mutual Funds in India.In the most recent March 2026 quarter, mutual funds increased their stake by 7.5%, taking the overall shareholding to 17.24%.This buying comes on top of three consecutive quarters of buying, where mutual funds had increased their holding from 8.44%.Aavas Financiers operates in the affordable financing segment. It offers housing loans and MSME loans backed by property and loans against property (LAP) to segments in the middle and lower income salaried and self-employed borrowers in India's rural and semi-urban regions.Unlike its peers, Aavas uses an in-house sourcing model (98.9% direct) rather than relying on agents.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk—a recent Economist article describes them as the small, powerful group of five men who will determine the path along which artificial intelligence (AI) evolves. Their fellow AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, who invented the neural network system that enables AI models to learn like humans, quit Google in 2023 to alert the world that while further development of AI could lead us to a utopian future, it could equally lead us to a dystopian one.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.As companies around the world accelerate automation and adopt artificial intelligence (AI) tools, layoffs have shifted from speculation to reality. Thousands of professionals who once considered their careers stable are now navigating sudden unemployment.The scale is significant.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A $10 million purse? Believe it. A Hermès handbag owned by the late fashion icon Jane Birkin sold for that eye-popping, record-setting sum last summer at Sotheby’s in Paris.Now, if you can afford a $10 million pocketbook, there’s no doubt you have plenty of dough.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.New Delhi/Mumbai: Regulatory approvals in Europe for Tata Motors Ltd’s $4.4 billion acquisition of Iveco are running behind schedule, potentially pushing the closure of its largest-ever buyout past the April-June target, according to two persons in the know.Pending clearances from the European Central Bank and the European Commission could delay revenue recognition and integration plans, adding near-term uncertainty even as the company continues to engage with regulators for an early closure.“Approvals from European Central Bank and European Competition Commission are still pending, which should have come a couple of months back. The deal is running behind schedule,” one of the persons mentioned above said on the condition of anonymity.In a 12 February presentation to investors, Iveco had noted that the timeline proposed by Tata Motors suggested all regulatory approvals should be in place by the end of the March quarter.After all regulatory approvals come through, Tata’s offer will be submitted to Italy’s securities market regulator Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob), following which the offer will be formally launched.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: Bigger is proving to be a handicap for portfolio management services (PMS), with five of six large schemes analysed—each managing over ₹5,000 crore—seeing performance decline after crossing that size, an analysis by Mint shows.PMS are customized investment portfolios for high-net-worth investors, with a minimum investment of ₹50 lakh, typically built around a concentrated set of stocks.The pattern points to a structural constraint: as PMS strategies scale, deploying larger sums into high-conviction small- and mid-cap ideas becomes harder without moving prices, compressing alpha.There are 15 equity PMS schemes with assets above ₹5,000 crore as of March 2026, according to data from the Association of Portfolio Managers of India (Apmi). Of these, six schemes were analysed as they manage domestic money and invest directly in stocks.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At his glass-walled office, Pirojsha Adi Godrej, 45, the chairman designate of Godrej Industries, sits with his back to the renowned mangroves of Vikhroli stretching into the horizon. Pirojsha, who collects manuscripts ranging from the Mughal era to contemporary times, is now dedicated to nurturing the storied Godrej legacy, which grew significantly during his father (Adi Godrej) and uncle’s (Nadir) eras. The succession comes two years after the 129-year-old Godrej group split into two—Godrej Industries Group and Godrej Enterprises Group.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s newly unveiled CGSMFI 2.0, a ₹20,000 crore credit guarantee scheme for microfinance, aims to revive credit flows to the stressed sector. Yet, in its current form, it only partially addresses the symptoms and largely ignores the causes. India’s microfinance sector is in downturn.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.If I gave you a choice between something that is 60-70% true and something that is an outright lie, which one would you prefer? It is normal to think that having a reasonable amount of truth in what is being said would be better than a complete untruth, but you would be mistaken. Why?“Something that’s true but incomplete might be more dangerous than something that’s wrong, as a little truth is a fuel for a lot of overconfidence,” said Morgan Housel.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Velmurugan J., a hospitality sector executive from Kulithalai town near Karur, considers himself lucky. He decided to attend actor Joseph Vijay’s political rally in Karur on 27 September last year, urged on by his colleague who was a die-hard fan of the star.By noon, they reached Velusamypuram, the venue of the meeting on the Karur-Erode highway, and took a vantage position near a generator shed. The crowd was swelling and the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) leader’s arrival was delayed.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Life is coming full circle for Suzlon Energy Ltd as the company looks to resume selling wind turbines in Europe, a market where it stopped sales nearly two decades ago as it worked its way out of a debt crisis.The Pune-based company on Tuesday launched two new turbine designs for the European market with capacities of 5 MW and 6.3 MW, based on its new Blue Sky product platform. These add to its portfolio of 2.1 MW and 3 MW machines.The new platform will debut in Europe and the company will take a call later this year on the specifications in which it can be brought to India, Girish Tanti, the executive vice-chairman of Suzlon, told Mint over a call from Madrid.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Balanced advantage funds (BAFs)—hybrid mutual funds that dynamically shift between equity and debt—adjust their allocations in response to market conditions. In theory, they increase equity exposure when valuations are low and move towards debt when equities appear stretched.A closer look at how India’s five largest BAFs have moved over the past two years, however, reveals a more nuanced picture: the broad direction is consistent, but the pace, range and conviction differ from fund to fund.Between January 2024 and March 2026, the Nifty 50 ran through a full cycle—rallying about 19% from around 21,700 to over 25,800, correcting nearly 14% through February 2025, recovering through the rest of 2025, and showing fresh weakness in early 2026 amid the West Asia war.Through this period, the five largest BAFs by assets under management (AUM)—HDFC Balanced Advantage Fund, ICICI Prudential BAF, SBI BAF, Edelweiss BAF and Kotak BAF—all adjusted equity exposure, but in different ways driven by their underlying models, ranging from valuation-based frameworks to momentum-driven approaches.That divergence matters.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Four of India’s biggest conglomerates—Adani Group, JSW Group, Reliance Industries, and Tata Group—have emerged as the dominant buyers of stressed assets under India’s decade-old bankruptcy regime.Together, these four conglomerates acquired companies that accounted for nearly a quarter of the total admitted claims of ₹13 trillion under the corporate insolvency resolution process (Cirp) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) as of December 2025—despite accounting for just 28 of the 1,376 resolutions completed so far.Adani Group led the pack with 13 acquisitions, including six power companies, according to a Mint analysis of data from the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI). These deals helped rapidly scale up Adani Power Ltd, which emerged as the country’s largest thermal power producer.The JSW Group followed with seven acquisitions, including Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd, one of the most prominent resolutions under the insolvency process.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The people who gather in this small room on the eighth floor of the New York Stock Exchange look like a group of middle-aged caffeine addicts.They sit around what resembles a school science lab sniffing coffee beans and slurping coffee so aggressively that there’s loud music playing to drown them out.But these aren’t junkies with bad manners. They’re part of an elite team of graders who help keep the commodities market running. Their ratings help set U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In India’s equity market, few segments carry the same wealth-creation potential as midcaps. These are companies ranked 101 to 250 by market capitalisation—large enough to have scale, but still small enough for meaningful growth.They sit in an awkward middle ground. Too small to feel safe.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: Big investors are no longer content to just back funds, they increasingly want to invest directly in the deals those funds pursue.In India’s private markets, this push for co-investment rights is giving limited partners (LPs) more control over where their money goes and better economics, while encouraging fund managers to offer such access to secure commitments and execute larger deals. What was once optional is quickly becoming standard in fund negotiations.“Co-investment has become almost a common ask by investors in any new fund raise.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: Singapore-based private equity firm Everstone Capital will invest close to $270 million for a significant stake in Apothecon Group, which includes India-based Apothecon and US-based Navinta, it said in a statement on Tuesday.The combined platform is a regulated-markets-focused speciality formulations business with in-house formulation capabilities and captive active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing. It has a diversified commercial presence across the US, Europe and other international markets.Apothecon was founded in 2003 by industry veterans Mahendra Patel, former chief scientific officer at Sandoz and co-founder of Invamed (later acquired by Sandoz), and Joe Renner, former chief operating officer of Sandoz and chairman of Zydus US.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) discussion paper, ‘Exploring Safeguards in Digital Payments to Curb Frauds,’ is part of its ongoing efforts to make digital payments safer and fraud-proof to the extent possible. Given the rapid growth of online transfers, it was but inevitable that frauds would also increase manifold.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.If your equity portfolio is hurting this quarter, you’re not alone.Indian equities have had a bruising start to 2026. As of 31 March, the Nifty 50 is down 14.5% year-to-date, the Nifty 500 about 14%, and mid- and small-cap indices have fallen 13-14% in just three months. By any short-term measure, this has been a sharp correction.Step back, though, and the picture looks very different.

Stock market recap: Indian benchmark indices surged about 6% last week—their strongest performance in over five years—driven by sharply improving global cues, and a risk-on rally across global equities. The Sensex surged 918.60 points, or 1.20%, to end at 77,550.25 on Friday, while the Nifty also finished higher, reclaiming the important 24,000 level.SONACOMS: Buy above 556 stop 520 target 610 (Multiday)NAM-INDIA: Buy above ₹960, stop ₹897 target ₹1075 (Multiday)OLECTRA: Buy above ₹1187, stop ₹1170 target ₹1275 (Multiday)Indian equity markets staged a strong rebound on 10 April 2026, recovering smartly after the previous session’s weak close.

foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded around ₹60,000 crore worth of financial sector stocks, triggering a sharp correction in the Bank Nifty.That’s just the selling in the financial sector…in one month.But if you look at the overall trend, FIIs pulled out more than ₹1.12 trillion from Indian equities, making it one of the sharpest monthly outflows in recent years.While all this was happening, a few FIIs quietly took a contrarian call and continued to buy Indian equities. Interestingly, their focus was small-cap stocks.During the Jan-March 2026 period, several small companies received interest from foreign institutional investors.In this editorial, we will look at four small-cap stocks that were bought by FIIs in the March 2026 quarter.In the December 2025 quarter, the company’s FII holding was 3.36% that has increased to 5.77% as of March 2026.Shringar House of Mangalsutra designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of mangalsutras in 18k and 22k gold, studded with American diamonds, cubic zirconia, pearls, and semi-precious stones.It holds close to 6% share of the organized mangalsutra market in India.