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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.President Trump’s threat to raise tariffs on European cars is a warning for investors and U.S. trading partners that the Iran war hasn’t dissuaded him from his trade agenda or his willingness to strong-arm allies through economic pressure.Trump said Friday that the U.S. would increase tariffs on European cars and trucks to 25% from the 15% level that was agreed to as part of a preliminary trade deal last summer.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU: Godrej Properties Ltd (GPL), the country’s highest-selling residential developer, is stepping up its push into high-value housing, lining up a series of premium and luxury launches across key markets as part of a ₹48,000 crore pipeline for fiscal year 2027 (FY27), executive chairperson Pirojsha Godrej said Wednesday.GPL is targeting ₹39,000 crore of sales bookings this year, on the back of a strong launch pipeline and demand for branded developers.The planned launches span prime micro-markets, including Golf Course Extension Road in Gurugram, Ashok Vihar in Delhi, and Bandra Bay in Mumbai, underscoring a clear tilt towards higher-ticket projects.The shift follows a year of aggressive land acquisitions in top locations and marks a more pronounced move into luxury, even as GPL has previously developed such projects.In Gurugram, now emerging as one of India’s key luxury hubs, GPL will develop a project on an 11.36-acre land parcel acquired earlier this year, with a revenue potential of about ₹4,500 crore. In Delhi, the company plans to launch a much-awaited project spread over around 27 acres in Ashok Vihar, where apartments are likely to be priced at ₹5 crore and above.In Mumbai’s Bandra Bay, where developers such as Adani Realty and others are preparing luxury launches, GPL is planning a project with apartments priced at over ₹15 crore each, as per analyst estimates.“The launches this year will reflect the kind of business development GPL has done last year, where it has acquired land in key micro-markets within the cities it operates in.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Marico Ltd, synonymous with brands such as Parachute and Saffola, aims to earn ₹15,000 crore revenue in FY27 and ₹20,000 crore by FY30, as the consumer goods major sharpens its focus on premium products, packaged foods and a digital-first push. To meet its targets, the company looks to tap the growing wellness and premium personal care segments, moving from its commodity-centric profile.“We have multiple vectors of growth, and we have factored that not all 100% will fire every year,” managing director and chief executive officer Saugata Gupta told Mint in an interview.Marico on Tuesday reported a 9.3% rise in FY26 consolidated net profit to ₹1,813 crore.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: When Dilip Shanghvi walked into the press conference to announce Sun Pharmaceutical’s acquisition of Organon & Co.—an $11.75 billion deal that will effectively double the company’s revenue to $12.4 billion—he offered a rare admission.“I’m happy, excited, also a little bit anxious,” he told journalists, adding that the sheer size of the transaction reminded him of announcing the Ranbaxy Laboratories deal a decade ago.Back then, Sun was a fraction of its current size. This time, it is acquiring a company roughly equal in size, paying for it with cash and borrowed money rather than stock, and doing so at what Shanghvi described as “less than 25% of Sun’s own value.”At the surface, the Organon deal is a story about scale—a large Indian generics company buying an even larger portfolio of established branded drugs and biosimilars from a spun-off Merck subsidiary.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Patience may be the greatest virtue, but few professional investors have the privilege of practising it. In real life, money managers live in constant fear that their investors will flee—and their jobs will be toast—if they fail to keep up with their benchmarks for several quarters or, heaven forbid, years. The only living exception is Warren Buffett.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.It says something about the memory business when skyrocketing profits can actually be a cause for worry.Profits have never been a sure thing in the volatile industry. Memory chip makers Micron Technology and Sandisk, as well as hard-drive makers Seagate and Western Digital, have all produced annual operating losses at least once in just the last three years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU/MUMBAI: Blackstone-owned Mphasis Ltd has filed a lawsuit in a US court against rival Coforge Ltd, accusing the Noida-based IT services firm of hiring its employees in violation of contractual restrictions and gaining access to confidential client information.The Bengaluru-based company, which reported $1.8 billion in revenue last year, has also named its former vice president Brijesh Khergamker as a party in the case filed in a Colorado court.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Demand for beer in India is holding up, but for United Breweries Ltd, rising costs and delayed pricing are squeezing margins.The Heineken NV-controlled maker of Kingfisher beer reported a weaker-than-expected performance for fiscal year 2026 (FY26), with revenue and profit declining even as volumes showed some resilience. A fresh wave of input cost inflation, particularly in packaging, alongside supply disruptions linked to the West Asia conflict, is driving the pressure in India’s tightly regulated beer market.Revenue from operations fell 10% to ₹1,746.3 crore in FY26 from ₹1,940.8 crore a year earlier, according to exchange filings, while profit declined 6.6% to ₹413.4 crore.For the quarter ended 31 March (Q4FY26), revenue was largely flat at ₹440 crore versus ₹442.7 crore a year earlier, while profit rose to ₹101.8 crore from ₹97.7 crore.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Facebook founder Eduardo Saverin's venture capital firm B Capital is looking to increase its exposure in India by investing in deeptech, artificial intelligence and energy transition sectors, according to a top executive.“We want to try to deploy $50 million to $100 million in India on an annual basis,” Karan Mohla, general partner at Singapore-based B Capital, said in an interview with Mint. “We see India as our primary market after the US.”The 10-year-old firm invested in global enterprise tech in its initial five years and in consumer tech over the next two to three years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Chennai-based Veritas Finance, a non-banking financial company, is exploring a private transaction worth ₹800–1,000 crore to facilitate exits for early investors after facing repeated delays in its public listing, three people familiar with the matter said.“The transaction is expected to give exits to some of its early backers like Lok Capital and British International Investment (BII), who have been invested in the company for a long time,” one of the people cited above said.Veritas’ move to explore a private market deal comes as it seeks to improve financial performance and reattempt a listing when public market valuations become more stable and conducive.“The round is likely to be secondary in nature and could become larger if other investors including Kedaara Capital and Norwest Venture Partners also look to sell some stake opportunistically,” the second person said.The person added that the company has also held discussions with investment banks including Avendus for a private transaction, although a formal banker appointment is due in the coming weeks.Veritas competes with Shriram Finance, Aye Finance, Vistaar Finance, Five Star Business Finance, Indostar Capital, Bajaj Finserv, Equitas Small Finance Bank and Lendingkart, among others.Veritas, Avendus, Norwest, and BII declined to comment while Kedaara and Lok Capital did not respond to Mint’s emails sent on Tuesday.“While the exact deal terms are yet to be decided, the company doesn’t need much primary capital at this stage so the round will largely be a secondary transaction,” a third person said, confirming the above details.In a secondary transaction, shareholders sell their stakes to other existing or new investors, and no

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Just a few weeks ago, the case for gilt funds, which hold government bonds with long tenures, seemed compelling.A sharp rise in government bond yields had made valuations attractive, market sentiment had turned very pessimistic, and several fund managers argued that much of the concern around elevated borrowing and supply pressures was already priced in.Government bond yields rose amid inflation fears stoked by the West Asia war. A rise in yield means a drop in prices, making gilt funds attractive.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The rupee closed at a record low of 95.29 on Tuesday as foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued to sell and crude prices stayed above $100 per barrel. Costlier oil is pushing up India’s import bill, while weak foreign inflows are limiting any recovery, said market participants.The rupee will see a meaningful recovery only once Brent crude falls below $100 and capital flows turn supportive again, market experts said, adding that against some emerging market peers, the rupee is beginning to look undervalued.Yet, the overall bias remains weak, with the rupee consistently facing selling pressure on rebounds.“In the near term, 94.70 is likely to act as resistance, while 95.50 is seen as immediate support, with markets closely tracking US non-farm payrolls and unemployment data this week for further direction," said Jateen Trivedi, vice-president and research analyst for commodity and currency at LKP Securities.Over the past year, the rupee has weakened by nearly 11%, with over 4% of that decline coming since the war broke out.Even as earnings improve and nominal growth normalizes, the rupee remains under pressure from higher crude prices this year and continued FPI selling after last year's trade tensions, said Harsh Gupta Madhusudan, fund manager, PIPE, Ionic Asset.The last one to two years have been the perfect storm for India with gold imports remaining strong, India not having any clear AI play, and post-2024 elections macro tightness filtering through with a lag, which is now being reversed.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: For India, the fallout from West Asia conflict, while negative for the macro-economy, would remain manageable if a final peace deal is reached by mid-May.Any extension beyond that could push up oil price expectations and have a more severe impact, not just on the macro, but also on earnings for the current fiscal, which are otherwise expected to hold up better than the economy in the context of the war, according to Sanjeev Prasad, managing director and co-head, Kotak Institutional Equities.In an interview to Mint, he also explained why foreign investors continue to pull out despite valuations correcting.Edited excerpts:It is a little bit of a challenge as of now. The hope was that the West Asia war would end by early April...then mid-April and at the end of last month we were hoping for mid-May.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Data released on Tuesday by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations in India shows that automobile retail sales rose 13% from a year earlier to over 2.6 million units in April, the best-ever performance for this month. The growth was broad-based, with five of the six main segments posting record numbers; all barring construction equipment, that is.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The central government’s procurement from micro and small enterprises (MSEs) rose 21% to ₹1.14 trillion in FY26, according to the MSME Sambandh portal. This surge meant smaller firms bagged nearly half (48.91%) of all central government orders, a significant increase from the 43.28% ( ₹93,971 crore) recorded in FY25.This performance far exceeds the statutory requirement for the government to source at least 25% of its orders from MSEs.Industry stakeholders and experts suggested the rising volumes reflected growing MSME inclusion within the national economy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Xiaomi once sold one in every four smartphones in India. By 2025, it had fallen out of the country’s top five brands.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Emcure Pharmaceuticals plans to expand its biosimilars pipeline to ride a slew of patent expiries as well as favourable tailwinds on global demand, the company’s top executive told Mint in an interview.“We have identified biosimilars as a growth driver. In the next three to five years, a lot of our R&D spend as well as portfolio contribution would be skewed towards biosimilars as well as some of the larger peptides and the ADC (antibody drug conjugates) program,” managing director and chief executive Satish Mehta said.Pune-headquartered Emcure is largely a generics drug manufacturer, but is ramping up focus on specialty products like complex injectables, biologics and antibody drug conjugates.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd's group chief executive, Anish Shah, is shifting his focus to deploying artificial intelligence, as the conglomerate closed its fifth year under his leadership with double-digit profit growth.The Mumbai-based company has crafted a strategy to increase revenue, which surged 26% year-on-year to ₹1.98 trillion in 2025-26, by using AI to enhance the service experience, improve marketing efficiency, and shorten the time-to-market for new products.Revenue surge was powered by a 20% on-year jump in sports utility vehicle (SUV) volumes to over 660,000 units, dethroning rival Hyundai Motor India from the second position, while net profit rose 32% on-year to ₹18,621 crore, further supported by growth across its business segments and a reduction in loss-making assets overseas.Its real estate and logistics business, Mahindra Lifespaces and Mahindra Logistics, reported a 50% rise in profit after tax, while its automobile segment—the largest contributor—posted 33% profit growth. Tech Mahindra Ltd, India's fifth-largest IT services company, ended the fiscal year with a 7% rise in net profit.Now, M&M wants to improve efficiencies to further boost revenue while reducing costs and turnaround time.“Over the past few months, I have spent an hour a day on AI, one hour every day.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.E-commerce companies and delivery platforms are scrambling to hire workers during peak summer demand but are finding it difficult to fill roles on time, as experienced gig workers increasingly refuse to play ball, recruitment firms said.These gig workers are no longer attracted by slightly higher pay on another platform, and in some cases even dropping out late in the hiring process, as they look for formal, stable jobs with predictable incomes to cope with rising living costs. This has pushed up hiring costs by 15-20% this summer season as gig workers prefer fixed-salary jobs that pay at least ₹15,000-20,000 a month - levels that still fall short of their financial needs.“We are observing signs of a supply-side constraint.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At this point, the Gulf war has started to seem like a series of missed deadlines and hollow pronouncements. What began as a two-week truce on April 8th is now approaching its fifth week. Donald Trump claims he can ignore a law that requires the American president to seek congressional approval for wars that last longer than 60 days (this one began 65 days ago).

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The government is considering awarding national highway contracts only after obtaining all critical clearances, a move aimed at curbing project delays and cost escalation, according to two officials aware of the development.Under the proposal being considered, road projects will be awarded only after at least 90% of the land required is acquired, a norm already being enforced more strictly in recent years. In addition, the ministry of road transport and highways wants prior approval to remove structures such as houses and buildings that fall along the project stretch, an issue that has emerged as a key source of delays, one official said.According to the second official, even after land acquisition and statutory approvals, pending permissions to remove or modify built-up structures have stalled several projects.