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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Anthropic is finalizing a deal to create a new joint venture with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and a handful of other Wall Street firms that aims to sell artificial-intelligence tools to private-equity backed companies, according to people familiar with the matter.An announcement is expected as soon as Monday, the people said.Anthropic, Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman are anchoring the deal and are each expected to invest roughly $300 million, the people added.Goldman Sachs is also set to be a founding investor, putting in around $150 million, the people said. General Atlantic and other firms are also involved in the deal.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.How soon will the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raise rates and how high will it take them? Those have become urgent questions for bankers in Mumbai after elevated energy-import costs pushed the rupee to a record low last week. RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra has signalled a preference to stay on pause. The central bank would step in, he said in an 18 April speech at Princeton University, “through its influence on inflation expectations rather than through blunt demand compression,” a euphemism for monetary tightening.Still, Malhotra’s cheap-money era is likely drawing to a close, thanks to the pressure from the foreign-exchange market.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Chennai: To say the Kerala government’s finances are in a mess is an understatement. The state has a litany of woes which successive governments have failed to take head on. Its ability to raise revenue is impaired.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s power prices on electricity exchange hit zero for the first time on Friday, 1 May, raising concerns for investors and developers as the country moves towards its target 500 giga watt (GW) non-fossil capacity by 2030.Data from the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) showed power prices were at zero in two blocks of 15 minutes each on Friday, as demand dipped due to easing temperatures and low industrial demand but power supply — especially solar power — climbed, bringing prices down.The dip in demand came from partly cloudy skies, light rains, and gusty winds in northern India and Delhi-NCR, and heavy rainfall in parts of eastern India. Similar weather was witnessed on Saturday, 2 May.To be sure, power prices on the real time market (RTM) platform of the IEX had dropped to near-zero twice earlier—on the afternoon of 5 April, and on 25 May last year, under similar circumstances.In a LinkedIn post on on Friday, IEX said: “Cooler weather, record solar generation (~57.5 GW), and inflexible thermal supply are leading to ample sell-side availability on the Exchange.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Nestlé India flagged potential price increases if input costs remain elevated, even as it continues to prioritize volume-led growth.“We did see some commodity inflation like milk and wheat… The fuel part is a curveball,” chairman and managing director Manish Tiwary told Mint.“Of course, if it persists, while we do want more volume-led growth, we might have to make some price adjustments,” he added.Nestlé India, the maker of KitKat and Maggi, has leaned on volumes to drive growth, but Tiwary acknowledged that pricing could return to the mix depending on how commodity costs evolve. “So, from almost a complete volume-led growth, we could have some pricing (-led growth), depending on how the commodity and prices move,” he said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At 11.40 am on Saturday, millions of phones across India blared a loud alert simultaneously, interrupting calls and conversations. The disruption was deliberate. It was a nationwide test of a multilingual cell broadcast system developed by the state-owned Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) for emergency warnings during disasters.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Vedanta Ltd is set to overhaul its dividend policy, moving away from a structure that guarantees a fixed minimum payout to a more flexible, board-driven approach, which may impact the sentiments of investors who have long relied on the company’s predictable returns.Earlier, the mining giant was committed to paying at least 30% of profits as dividends, and now the board will have the flexibility to pay 30% or the amount they deem fit, chief financial officer Ajay Goel disclosed the move during a post-earnings call with analysts last week.Speaking on the change, Goel said the company’s dividend framework will transition from a “prescriptive” model to a more “principle-based” one. Vedanta's FY26 dividend payout was the lowest level since FY21.The timing is significant as Vedanta is in the midst of splitting into five separately listed entities, and the demerged entities will have a similar but separate dividend policy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.It has been a bruising week for the news cycle, starting with gunfire outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and ending with a geopolitical jolt from the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) exit from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).Let’s begin with Washington.President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and other senior officials were rushed to safety after shots were heard outside the venue hosting the annual gathering of journalists and political leaders.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. is cutting jobs as it pivots towards artificial intelligence (AI), marking one of the first instances of a large IT services firm explicitly linking AI-led disruption to headcount.In an internal memo to more than 350,000 employees, Surya Gummadi, head of Cognizant’s US business, said the layoffs reflect a “real” and “accelerated” shift in how the industry operates, with the company moving to redeploy resources towards AI capabilities and partnerships.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The Iran war has offered China, Russia and North Korea—the U.S.’s biggest security threats—a rare opportunity to learn about the capabilities and limitations of the U.S. military.The three powers have witnessed certain new American weapons in combat for the first time, including lightning-fast precision airstrikes assisted by artificial intelligence.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.From India and New Zealand formally signing a free trade agreement (FTA) to India once again becoming a net exporter of finished steel, the index of industrial production (IIP) easing to a five-month low in March, freshers facing disruptions in job offers,and gender disparity in India’s boardrooms — here is a compilation of this week's news in numbers.India and New Zealand formally signed a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) on Monday after completing the negotiations in just nine months in December 2025, making this one of the fastest trade deals ever concluded. The deal carries a $20 billion investment commitment from Wellington over the next 15 years, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said.The FTA will grant duty-free access to all Indian exports to New Zealand, spanning 100% of tariff lines.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: The Centre is exploring partnerships with real estate-focused global investors to form real estate investment trusts (Reits) that will house optic fibre networks and land assets of central public sector enterprises (CPSEs), multiple people with knowledge of the matter said. The assets under consideration could also be repurposed for data centre infrastructure, potentially widening investor appeal.The plan, still at an early stage, is part of a broader push to accelerate government asset monetization following the Union budget for 2026-27, which proposed using Reit structures to recycle state-owned assets and attract institutional capital.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Fast-moving consumer goods makers are leaning on a mix of price increases, smaller pack sizes and tighter cost controls to navigate raw-material volatility triggered by the ongoing US-Iran war, while still reporting robust volume growth for the March quarter. The ongoing war blew up end February this year, disrupting global supply chains.Executives at top firms said calibrated pricing and ‘shrinkflation’ are helping them protect margins. The trend shows staples demand have held up, but also points to a gradual pass-through of higher commodity and packaging costs to consumers as geopolitical disruptions keep input prices elevated.At Hindustan Unilever Ltd, the strategy is already in motion.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Aster DM Healthcare is charting an aggressive expansion and growth roadmap, as it nears completion of its merger with Blackstone-backed Quality Care. With a strong financial and operational outlook for FY27, the combined entity targets over 4,400 additional beds in the next three to four years, managing director Alisha Moopen told Mint in an interview.The merger is expected to be complete in the current quarter ending June, well over a year after the deal was announced in November 2024.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s pilots have urged the aviation regulator to fully enforce flight duty time limitations (FDTL), warning that relaxations could compromise safety and crew wellbeing. In a 1 May letter, reviewed by Mint, the pilots' association cited recent pilot deaths and flagged rising fatigue risks, seeking a time-bound roadmap to end selective exemptions that, it said, have diluted the intent of the rules.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.GANDHINAGAR: Six listed companies have applied for licences to set up corporate treasury centres in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, said Kalyanaraman Rajaraman, chairperson of the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA).The applications signal rising interest in India’s offshore financial hub as large companies look to centralize global cash and risk management. While the regulator declined to identify the applicants, Rajaraman said demand is likely to rise over time.“We have issued 10 authorizations till date… we are talking to almost every MNC (multinational company).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU: Reliance Retail has acquired Anomaly Haircare, the global haircare label founded by actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas, as it accelerates its push into beauty and personal care.The dealincludes ownership of trademarks and digital assets with plans to scale the brand across India and global markets using Reliance’s omnichannel ecosystem, including its Tira platform, it said in a statement on Thursday.Mint unpacks why Reliance Retail is assembling a celebrity-led brand portfolio despite these companies reporting losses.Reliance Retail’s playbook has increasingly leaned on star power. The company had bought a majority stake in actor Alia Bhatt’s kidswear brand Ed-a-Mamma in July 2023.It acquired a 40% stake in celebrity stylist Manish Malhotra’s luxury ethnic wear brand MM Styles in 2021, and bought a majority stake in celebrity stylist Ritu Kumar’s label the same year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) ended FY26 on a good note, clocking an underlying volume growth of 6% for the three months through March (Q4FY26), a multi-quarter high, supported by steady demand across both rural and urban markets. The improvement is notable, with volume growth rising from 4% in Q3 after a muted Q2, when volumes were broadly flat. The company expects FY27 to be stronger than FY26, driven by portfolio shifts and channel transformation.The durability of this recovery, however, will be tested in the coming quarters.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Asset management companies (AMCs) largely held up their full-year earnings performance in FY26, but mark-to-market losses stemming from the West Asia conflict dented their latest quarterly profit. Listed AMCs recorded a sequential decrease in net profit or a loss in the January-March quarter.ICICI Prudential AMC reported a 16.8% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) decline in net profit to ₹763 crore in Q4.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Global payments network Visa is stepping up its push for merchant acceptance in India as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) cements its lead in everyday digital payments, a top Visa India executive told Mint. The company is betting that cheaper acceptance tools, card-based subscriptions, and a broader set of payment choices can help it win share among both small and large merchants.Ramakrishnan Gopalan, chief product officer, India and South Asia at Visa, said the company’s first pitch to merchants is built around consumer choice.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Is curbing oil demand the way ahead to stabilize global energy markets? That could be the case as the global energy landscape stares at a critical rebalancing act.The escalating conflict in West Asia is forcing the global oil market into a phase of “demand destruction”, with nearly 4.8 million barrels per day (mbpd) of supply shortfall expected to be absorbed through lower consumption, according to a report by PL Capital.Global oil prices have been on the boil since the outbreak of the conflict between the US and Iran, triggering the biggest energy crisis. However, prices fell briefly on account of the two-week ceasefire agreed on 8 April.