UPS Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.New Delhi: India's summer (zaid) crops, including maize, moong, and groundnut, have remained resilient despite scorching heat across several parts of the country. However, an extended heatwave could hurt both yields and crop quality, a senior agricultural scientist warned on Wednesday.Field reports suggest that these short-duration crops, grown between rabi and kharif seasons, are largely holding up, supported by timely irrigation, M.L.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU: Prestige Group is preparing to launch a premium senior living brand, entering a fast-growing real estate segment, a top company executive said.The developer has identified land parcels in Bengaluru for its first projects, with an inaugural development likely in north Bengaluru. The brand will be unveiled alongside the first project launch. Prestige is also setting up a dedicated senior living vertical and has hired experienced professionals to lead the business.“We are keen to get into senior living but we plan to do it differently.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In 1604, James I of England anonymously published a small book titled A Counterblaste to Tobacco. He called smoking “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” Within a year, he had raised the import duty on tobacco by 4,000%. The duty did not work.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Americans are increasingly turning to TikTok Shop to buy shampoo, jewelry and apparel. Retailers have noticed, pushing onto the platform with their own virtual stores.Ralph Lauren and Olaplex Holdings moved onto the platform late last year, while Ulta Beauty launched its store in March.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s outsourcing industry, its largest white-collar employer, is a juggernaut that has all but stopped moving. The dollar revenue at the top five software-services exporters has grown slower than 3% for 10 straight quarters—a shadow of the double-digit expansion in the previous two decades. As these companies squeeze hiring to survive the existential challenge posed by artificial intelligence (AI), the aftershocks are starting to upend everything from real-estate demand to mortgage-underwriting norms.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Smartphone care and warranty provider Servify is looking to close a string of acquisitions to expand its service categories before it files papers for a public listing.Like several initial public offering (IPO)-bound companies, Servify has taken a step back to wait for markets to stabilise amid the ongoing war in West Asia before filing its draft papers. It joins the list of companies such as PhonePe, Curefoods, and Turtlemint that have put their public market plans on hold.“We're in the middle of some initiatives which will likely help us become a larger entity than we are currently,” company founder and chief executive Sreevathsa Prabhakar told Mint.The Mumbai-based company is pursuing acquisitions across its core smartphone care business and a luxury goods vertical launched at the end of FY25.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Maruti Suzuki India’s stock rose 5% to ₹13,512 on Wednesday as investors prioritised the company's strong operating performance in the March quarter (Q4FY26) over a 7% year-on-year drop in net profit to ₹3,591 crore.It should be noted that Maruti’s Q4FY26 profitability per vehicle held up well despite the pressure from higher raw material costs, particularly steel. Ebitda per vehicle fell just 1.4% sequentially to ₹91,050 as the average selling price (ASP) rose 4% quarter-on-quarter to ₹7.76 lakh per unit.On the other hand, Q4FY26 domestic sales volumes announced at the start of April were disappointing.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Investors will be keenly watching how the US-Iran war-induced volatility in raw materials in March impacted Hindustan Unilever Ltd's (HUL) margins when the packaged consumer goods giant announces its fourth-quarter results on Thursday.HUL is expected to post a profit after tax of ₹2,612 crore and revenue of ₹16,270 crore in the three months ended 31 March, according to Bloomberg's 21-analyst estimate. In the third quarter, it reported a net profit before exceptional items of ₹2,562 crore and revenue of ₹16,235 crore.The company, often considered a proxy for consumption in India, has had a tough March quarter, with several key inputs used across its product portfolio directly exposed to disruptions triggered by the US-Iran war.For example, the price of palm oil, a key ingredient for HUL, which makes soaps under brands such as Lux, Lifebuoy, Dove, Pears, Rexona and Hamam, has been rising as the war has pushed major producers such as Malaysia and Indonesia to increase their biodiesel capacity.Similarly, prices of liquid paraffin, used in creams, have edged up slightly.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.PROJECT GENIE, an experimental artificial-intelligence model released by Google in January, is a jaw-dropping technical achievement. Give the tool a prompt—an image, say, or a brief snippet of text—and it will generate an interactive world for the user to explore.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.WHEN THE Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meets on April 29th, the club will be contemplating the departure of one of its longest-standing members. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has been part of the cartel since Abu Dhabi joined in 1967, has announced it will leave on May 1st. The war in Iran and its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have choked off the region’s energy exports, hammering the UAE and its neighbours in the Gulf.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The shift towards passive investing is one of the defining trends of this decade. According to NSE Indices’ Nifty Passive Insight report, released in March, assets under management (AUM) in passive schemes stood at ₹14.84 trillion as of end of February, up ninefold from ₹1.63 trillion in 2020.The passive universe now spans 677 schemes and 54 million folios, with 67% of AUM in equity, and more than half of that benchmarked to the Nifty 50.The foundation traces back to Nobel laureate William Sharpe, who argued in his 1991 paper The Arithmetic of Active Management that, after costs, the average actively managed dollar must underperform its passive counterpart.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Even as India’s electricity demand hit record highs in April, power prices crashed to near-zero during peak solar hours during the month—a paradox driven by too much renewable energy chasing too little flexible demand.For the second time in two years, rates on the Real Time Market (RTM) of the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) dropped to near-zero— ₹0.0003 per unit on the afternoon of 5 April—as excess solar power flooded the market even as demand dipped due to rains and thunderstorms in Delhi and other parts of northern India. The first such instance was on 25 May last year.Prices have since remained volatile, falling to as low as 40 paise per unit on 12 April even as they recently hit the ₹10 per unit cap amid a heatwave-driven surge in demand.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.OpenAI recently missed its own targets for new users and revenue, stumbles that have raised concern among some company leaders about whether it will be able to support its massive spending on data centers.Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told other company leaders that she is worried the company might not be able to pay for future computing contracts if revenue doesn’t grow fast enough, according to people familiar with the matter.Board directors have also more closely examined the company’s data-center deals in recent months and questioned Chief Executive Sam Altman’s efforts to secure even more computing power despite the business slowdown, the people said.The spending scrutiny is constraining Altman’s once-boundless ambitions ahead of a potential initial public offering that could take place by the end of the year. Friar and other executives are now seeking to control costs and instill more discipline in the business, at times putting them at odds with their CEO, people familiar with the issue said.“We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day,” Altman and Friar said in a joint statement.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Bill Ackman wants to capitalize on his social-media fame by opening his hedge-fund strategy to the masses. It remains to be seen how enthusiastic the masses are.The billionaire investor plans to stage a unique double listing Wednesday, taking public both a new stock-picking fund, Pershing Square USA, and his hedge-fund management company, Pershing Square.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Bengaluru: In a Mumbai apartment, Abhishek Sarkate spends his days staring at a glowing screen. As a video editor working remotely, his world rarely extends beyond his desk. A while back, when he tried outsourcing his food, ordering in or eating out, his gut rebelled.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Good marketing can be edgy or cheeky, even provocative. It should have a point of view and be memorable.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.TOMBEAU BAY, Mauritius—Over centuries, the people of the remote Chagos Archipelago have been battered by forces beyond their control. Slavery.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Venture capital and growth investing firm Peak XV Partners has fully exited One MobiKwik Systems Ltd through an over ₹130-crore block deal, selling its remaining stake shortly after the fintech secured the non-banking financial services (NBFC) licence.The investor sold around 6.08 million shares, or about 7.7% of MobiKwik’s equity, at an average price of ₹214 apiece in a transaction executed at 9:15am on 28 April, according to two people aware of the matter.Buyers included private equity firm Florintree, hedge fund Viridian Asset Management, alternative investment firm Dymon Asia Capital and equity investment management firm Karma Capital, the people said.The ₹130-crore deal delivered about 3x returns for Peak XV on its investment in the company.Peak XV’s exit marks the departure of the last major PE fund from MobiKwik’s cap table. In September 2025, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) sold its 2.1% stake in a block deal, after which MobiKwik shares rallied as much as 14%.Peak XV, formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA, had been an early backer of MobiKwik and remained invested through the company’s public listing.The block sale came a day after MobiKwik announced that the Reserve Bank of India had approved its application for the NBFC licence.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.BENGALURU: Urban Company Ltd plans to launch an air-conditioner-cum-air purifier ahead of Diwali this year, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, as the quick-services platform expands beyond its home and beauty services business and deepens its presence in its consumer durables vertical.Urban Company entered the consumer durables segment in October 2023 with the launch of its Native brand, starting with water purifiers. Since then, the company has added electronic door locks and is now looking to scale up with air-conditioner-cum air purifiers.“Urban Company can only make so much profit from its services business because that depends heavily on manpower and day-to-day operations.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.I can see from your coat, my friend, that you’re from the other side/ Can you tell me, please—who won the war?—Wooden Ships by Crosby, Stills, Nash and YoungIt is now relatively quiet on the West Asian front and there is little doubt that we have moved away from the brinkmanship of 7 April, a critical turning point. On that day, US President Donald Trump threatened a civilizational war against Iran, which responded by mobilizing human shields to protect critical infrastructure and suspending truce talks with the US. In that moment, the price of Brent crude oil for physical delivery briefly surged to $144 per barrel and headlines warned of ‘Armageddon.’ This marked the peak of global panic.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A new craze has taken hold of Silicon Valley in recent months. Techies looking to prove they are among the vanguard of artificial-intelligence adoption have taken to “tokenmaxxing”, competing against one another to burn through the most tokens (as the chunks of text processed by AI models are known). Between January and March, the weekly tokens processed by OpenRouter, a marketplace for accessing models, quadrupled.As demand for AI soars, the industry behind it is struggling to keep up.