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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Meta Platforms is preparing to have to unwind its acquisition of the artificial-intelligence startup Manus after China banned the transaction on national-security grounds Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.Meta bought Manus, a China-linked, Singapore-based startup that specializes in building AI agents, in December for $2.5 billion, and quickly moved to integrate the new technology into its systems. Any attempt to undo the acquisition would mean disentangling the two.In another complication, Manus’s investors, which include California-based venture-capital firm Benchmark, have already received their returns, people with knowledge of the matter said.Meta garners significant revenues from Chinese advertisers who target consumers outside China, despite Facebook and other Meta apps being blocked in the country.Several former Manus investors in Asia, including Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund, have planned to cooperate if Meta goes ahead to unwind the deal, some of the people said.Beijing has handed the two companies a preliminary deadline of several weeks to unwind the deal and fully restore Manus’s Chinese assets to their original state, some of the people said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Berkshire Hathaway may be de-emphasizing its smaller stock picks under CEO Greg Abel and the selloff Monday in Domino’s Pizza would support such a pullback.Berkshire owned just under 10% of Domino’s—some 3.35 million shares—at year-end. The stock fell nearly 9% Monday to $335.51 and hit a new 52-week low earlier in the session after the company reported results for the March that missed the consensus estimate on both revenue and earnings.Berkshire bought most of its stake in late 2024 at what Barron’s estimates is a price of between $400 and $450 and added to the holding in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Kolkata-based WishCare, known for its range of serums, sunscreens, and hair growth products, is exploring a majority stake sale that will value the brand at about ₹3,000-3,500 crore, three people familiar with the matter said.The company has appointed O3 Capital to help with the sale and several strategics and private equity funds will be tapped as part of the process, the people said on the condition of anonymity.“The deal is likely to attract a strategic buyer and feelers are expected to be sent to the likes of Marico, ITC and L'Oréal,” one of the people cited above said.India’s beauty and personal care (BPC) market, valued at $23 billion in FY25, is projected to touch $40 billion over the next four years, according to consultancy firm Redseer. Riding this surge in premium, science-led skincare demand, WishCare competes with fast-scaling brands such as Minimalist, Pilgrim, Dot & Key, The Derma Co, Arata, True Frog, Lotus Herbals and Auli Lifestyle across categories.Emails sent to WishCare, O3 Capital, Marico, ITC and L'Oréal did not elicit a response till the time of publishing.“The company clocked about ₹350 crore in revenue and ₹100 crore in Ebitda in the last financial year (FY26),” according to the second person.WishCare clocked about ₹200 crore in revenue in FY25 and has been profitable.At the upper end of the indicated valuation range, the deal would value the company at roughly 8–10x FY26 revenue and about 30–35x Ebitda, indicating strong investor appetite for profitable new-age beauty brands.Interestingly, L'Oréal is also evaluating the acquisition of personal care brand Innovist at a valuation of $350-400 million, Moneycontrol reported last month.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Quick home services startup Snabbit has raised $56 million as part of its Series D round, co-led by Susquehanna Venture Capital, Mirae Asset Venture Investments' (MAVI), Unicorn Growth Fund, and Bertelsmann India Investments (BII).New investors on the company’s captable include MAVI, global marketplace investor FJ Labs and Susquehanna VC.“This round is really a mandate to build for the long-term,” said company founder and chief executive Aayush Agarwal in an interview with Mint. “It's about deepening our presence in existing markets, launching in new micro markets in cities we're live in and experimenting and launching new categories that increase the customer's wallet share.”India’s home services market was estimated at around $60 billion in FY25 and is projected to grow to nearly $100 billion, according to Redseer Strategy Consultants.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Investors usually favour companies in which foreign institutional investors (FIIs) hold a stake, as FIIs are known to prefer businesses with robust corporate governance, strong liquidity, and scalable earnings growth.Rising FII ownership can indicate investor confidence and attract market participation. However, it should not be the sole consideration for equity investment.FIIs may adjust holdings due to global interest rates, currency movements, ETF flows, or broader risk events unrelated to company fundamentals.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The India-New Zealand free trade agreement (FTA) signed on Monday is the latest in a series of bilateral pacts India has struck. Once operationalized, it will allow India zero-duty access for all goods along with easier mobility for professionals to work in New Zealand, which has also committed to invest $20 billion in India over many years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Tech companies are rushing to trade their people for more chips. Some of those companies might come to regret the exchange.Microsoft and Meta Platforms are just the latest major tech companies trying to scale back their workforces in the name of artificial intelligence. Meta’s latest plans will cut about 8,000 people from its workforce.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.WASHINGTON—Hours after gunfire erupted outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Sen. Kevin Cramer called President Trump to check on him.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: India’s second-biggest overseas acquisition was stitched together over three months of near-daily negotiations between the bidder, the seller and their bankers, said a banker aware of the details behind the transaction.Mumbai-based Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd on Monday said in an exchange filing it will acquire US-headquartered Organon & Co for about $11.75 billion. This is the largest overseas deal by an Indian company since Tata Steel acquired UK-based Corus Group for $12 billion in 2007.The deal was always pitched at around $12 billion from both sides, with negotiations neither exceeding nor materially falling from that level, the person cited above said on the condition of anonymity.“The deal was out in the market sometime late 2025, and Sun was very interested because it gave them access to more than 100 countries across the world and also complemented the product suite,” said the banker.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India's weakest monsoon forecast in 26 years hasn't rattled Dalal Street much, raising the risk that investors are underpricing pockets of stress.The India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) first estimate pegs 2026 rainfall at 92% of the long-period average (LPA), flagging chances of below-normal precipitation. Amid persistent foreign investor outflows, elevated crude prices and patchy earnings, monsoon risks are being seen as incremental.However, experts caution that a weak monsoon could choke farm cash flows, dampen rural credit demand, and sour asset quality before broader consumption trends buckle.Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) with exposure to vehicle loans and micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) financing in rural markets are most closely aligned with the monsoon cycle.Unlike fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), consumer durables, and autos—which can cushion rural weakness through premiumization and urban demand—these lenders' books are directly tied to farm incomes.The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) expects rabi crop income to grow just 0.8% year-on-year in FY26 due to low food inflation, down from almost 11% last year and well below the above-8% annual trend seen since FY16.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.For those who have faced a shortage of small-value notes and coins in their wallets, the next three months could bring a change.India’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), is looking to install dozens of cash and coin dispensers by the end of June, as it leads an initiative by the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to ease access to low-denomination paper money and coins.The state-owned lender plans to install 60 such machines in markets and other high-traffic areas where demand for change is high, according to four people familiar with the development and a document seen by Mint.The rollout will cover branches with currency chests in cities such as Bengaluru, Pune, Amravati, Chandigarh, Vellore, and Shimla, among others. The idea is to cover 13-14 states, the person said.“If the bank sees usage pickup at these machines, it will gradually increase the number.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In 2025, renewables surpassed coal in the global power mix for the first time in over a century, according to a new report by energy think tank Ember. India and China played a pivotal role in this transformation, with electricity generated from fossil fuels falling in both countries.However, coal still accounts for more than 70% of India’s electricity.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.One MobiKwik Systems Ltd expects to see margins improve after the Reserve Bank of India approved its application for a non-banking financial company (NBFC) licence, the company’s top executive told Mint.This marks a key regulatory milestone for the listed fintech as it looks to deepen its lending business. The licence will sit under wholly owned subsidiary MobiKwik Financial Services Pvt Ltd.“We have got this NBFC license to make our business more efficient and improve on margins,” said Bipin Preet Singh, chief executive officer of MobiKwik.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.JSW MG Motor India Pvt. Ltd, the joint venture between China’s SAIC Motor Corp.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In the past few years, the question most people asked about artificial intelligence (AI) has seemed deceptively simple: which model is best. By 2026, it had dissolved into something more nuanced. The operative question now is combinatorial: which mix is right for you.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.To understand why, look at OpenAI. Its success in domination of the consumer market for chatbots has become a poisoned chalice, because powering frontier models for roughly a billion active users requires enormous and expensive computing power.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.With its $11.75 billion acquisition of Organon, a Merck spinoff, Sun Pharmaceutical has officially embarked on one of the most ambitious overseas expansions ever by an Indian pharmaceutical company. Markets cheered the announcement on 27 April, sending the stock soaring almost 7%.This reflects optimism around scale expansion and strategic repositioning.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The rise of artificial intelligence-powered self-learning tools is forcing India’s upskilling companies to redesign their programmes to attract a broader, non-technical learner base.Upskilling firms such as Great Learning, Temasek-backed upGrad and Prosus-backed Eruditus, among others, have introduced no-code tracks within existing skilling programmes and launched targeted courses for non-technical learners in areas that previously required coding knowledge, the firms told Mint.This comes amid rapid improvements in generative AI models, which are increasingly capable of performing tasks that once required months of technical training.Learners are now wary of sitting through three to six-month-long courses for something that can be done in minutes using AI, said Arjun Nair, co-founder of Great Learning, which was formerly a Byju’s group company.“The models have become dramatically better. Whether it is Claude, Gemini, or OpenAI models, their capabilities have improved sharply in the last three to six months,” Nair said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Two months into the West Asia war, a conflict that triggered the world's greatest energy crisis, second- and third-order effects are surfacing everywhere, from falling fertilizer output and shortage of Coke cans to rising condom prices. This is a grim reminder of how deeply economic activity is tethered to crude oil and its derivatives.Beyond its role as a fuel source, crude oil serves as a vital feedstock for manufacturing over 6,000 products.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.KUANTAN, Malaysia—The Pentagon’s push to get its hands on the rarest of the rare-earth elements leads all the way to this small port city in Malaysia.Here, Lynas Rare Earths, an Australian company, has begun pumping out heavy rare earths, the elusive kind that China dominates.“No one had made a separated heavy rare earth outside of China in 20 years,” said Amanda Lacaze, Lynas’s chief executive. The company’s chief operating officer, Pol Le Roux, said it had actually been 30 years.When China cut off exports of heavy rare-earth elements during trade tensions last year, automobile factories in the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL) consolidated Ebitda inched up just 0.7% year-on-year to ₹44,141 crore in the March quarter (Q4FY26). Ordinarily, that wouldn’t cheer investors—but given the impact of the West Asia war on the O2C (oil-to-chemicals) segment, it is a reasonably good outcome.The O2C business, which contributed one-third of RIL’s total Ebitda in the quarter, faced crude availability constraints and a surge in costs such as freight and insurance.