UPS Financial News

PhonePe, the fintech giant backed byWalmart, is preparing for a major initial public offering, aiming for a valuation of up to $10.5 billion (around ₹97,000 crore). This would be lower than the $12 billion valuation at which PhonePe last raised $100 million from private equity investors in 2023.The IPO will be entirely an offer for sale (OFS), with existing investors including WM Digital, Microsoft Global Finance, and Tiger Global planning to sell shares.

Mint.Saraswat also said that specific features and the incentive structure under the second phase of the India Semiconductor Mission announced in Union budget 2026 are being worked out.Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the second phase of the mission in her budget speech in February to scale up the country’s capabilities in equipment, materials, design, intellectual property rights and to fortify the supply chain. In the budget for 2026-27, the Centre announced a second tranche of incentives under the mission, five years after rolling out the first ₹76,000-crore programme.India will also strive to explore and produce select critical minerals found domestically despite their low resource intensity making them costlier to extract, to guard against the risk of supply denial by other countries in future, Saraswat said.India’s push to build domestic capabilities in semiconductors and critical minerals, which are vital for IT, clean energy and defence sectors, comes at a time technology is increasingly shaping industrial and military power in a de-globalising world with weakening adherence to the rule of law.

copper demand is expected to surge globally amid electrification, renewable energy and grid expansion, even as supply remains constrained. Global benchmark copper prices are currently around $11,000-12,000 per tonne, jumping a little over 30% over the last one year.Drawing a parallel between operating a mine in Gadchiroli and in Congo is not entirely fair, said Suman Kumar, assistant vice-president for metals and mining at brokerage Philip Capital.In India, companies understand regulatory and political ecosystem, but in foreign jurisdictions, especially parts of Africa, execution risks are far higher, said the sell-side analyst.He pointed to examples of Indian companies that struggled to scale overseas mining projects, including Jindal Steel and Power Ltd in Mozambique and Vedanta Ltd's challenges at Konkola Copper Mines in Zambia.“Even companies with significantly deeper financial muscle have struggled.

Greaves Cotton, known for engine manufacturing and engineering.“As an auto component company, in some ways, it's easier for us to do that. We are dealing in components; so, there's not a huge difference in the components when it comes between, let's say a CNG or a diesel or a petrol.

A regulatory overhaul of how commissions are paid will shake up the segment estimated to account for about half of India’s ₹81 trillion in mutual fund assets: small distributors. Industry experts say they will be forced to partner with larger peers to survive, driving consolidation.The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) in December approved a revised framework for total expense ratio (TER) limits.

Edited excerpts:I think the move into this role happened quite naturally for me. When you understand the product deeply, it becomes much easier to sell or convince people because you know exactly what you’re talking about. My investment banking and research background helped a lot in that sense.

IPO-bound Singapore’s Sembcorp Industries Ltd’s Indian renewable energy business and Hexa Climate Solutions are vying to acquire the entire India renewable business of Italy’s Enel Group in a deal having an equity and enterprise value of around $100 million and $300 million, respectively, according to two people aware of the development. Sembcorp is present in India throughSembcorp India Private Limited and Sembcorp Green Infra Ltd (SGIL) along with other subsidiaries., while Hexa is backed by I Squared Capital.The HSBC-run sale process follows a deal signed last year—which later fell through—under which Waaree Energies Ltd had agreed to buy 100% of Enel Green Power India Pvt Ltd (EGP India) from its parent Enel Green Power Development S.R.L.

crisis in West Asia intensifying, there is lacklustre sentiment among both importers and exporters due to higher freight costs and logistical uncertainties. Things are likely to be clear in due course of time," said Vikas Jain, proprietor, Osho Marketing House, a Delhi-based export firm.“Though global wheat prices have increased, it could have been a good opportunity for Indian farmers and traders to earn better returns through exports.

Mint explains how the compensation mechanism could work and why the central bank believes a shared liability framework is needed.RBI has proposed a framework to compensate victims of small-value digital payment fraud, even in cases where the customer may have been partly negligent. The draft guidelines allow partial reimbursement for transactions of up to ₹50,000, with victims potentially receiving up to 85% of the loss or ₹25,000, whichever is lower.

If you thought 2025 was a tough transition, 2026 now seems to have plenty more surprises in store. India, in particular, has to trek through two tricky minefields over the next 10 months: energy security and technological flux. These two prickly issues will have to fight for the political leadership’s mind-space, cluttered as it is with tricky geopolitics, rising unemployment, sticky economic growth and an always-on electoral cycle.

US President Donald J. Trump’s extraordinary gamble in attacking Iran and risking a wider conflagration in West Asia dials up the economic hazards facing the US economy from ‘very high”’ to ‘extreme.’ This new stress compounds a series of other pressures already facing the economy, which is now even more unlikely to emerge unscathed.The near danger is a setback in financial markets that gets out of hand. In many ways, some such reversal was already overdue, given the apparent overvaluation of US equities, the weight placed by tariffs on the economy’s back, a still-deteriorating fiscal outlook and stubborn inflation.

Russian oil imports have received a free pass for a month, markets are spooked. And reasonably so.Higher crude means higher landed inflation, a wider current account deficit, and pressure on the rupee – all headwinds for corporate earnings, which had only just started staging a recovery. And markets have reacted accordingly – Nifty 50 index dropped almost 3% last week, matching the declines seen in the midcap and smallcap spaces.However, markets are never one-dimensional.

Owning property is a big step toward financial independence for women. It provides status in society and an economic foundation.“It is security for life, and it's their right,” said Gautam Khurana, managing partner & founder, India Law Offices LLP in Delhi.However, land ownership by women in India remains abysmal. Only 18.7% of women between the ages 15 and 49 own a house by themselves, while 13.7% own it jointly with someone else, according to World Bank data.Historically, daughters are often excluded from property distribution after a father’s death.

₹5,065 crore, up 60% year-on-year, according to an earnings statement from Reliance Industries.India’s FMCG sector remains dominated by established players such as Hindustan Unilever Ltd, which reported revenue of about ₹64,138 crore in FY25—highlighting the scale of the opportunity Reliance is targeting as it builds its consumer business.“What Reliance is doing is cobbling together a portfolio of brands that already have some momentum,” said Arvind Singhal, chairman of The Knowledge Company, a Gurgaon-based management consulting firm.Mint explains the strategy behind Reliance’s push to acquire regional brands and how it differs from rivals.Over the past few years, Reliance Consumer Products Ltd (RCPL) has assembled a portfolio of regional brands across food, beverages and personal care.One of its latest additions is Chennai-based Southern Health Foods Pvt. Ltd, which sells millet-based foods, health mixes and baby nutrition products under the Manna brand.

chat assistants themselves what their favourite words were. Gemini used to favour ‘Delve’, but this has faded as AI feeds on new content and training. Similarly, ‘Tapestry’, ‘Leverage’, and the em dash.

KPIT Technologies. The three companies ended last year with $1.26 billion, $870 million, and $691 million, up 8.16%, 0.81%, and 17.72%, respectively.

From stranded shipping vessels near Strait of Hormuz amid the West Asia conflict, to the change in sectoral share due to revision in GDP base year, manufacturing and services activity moving in different directions in February, collections in goods and services tax (GST) signalling a post-cut recovery, and the government’s renewed push to faster adoption of electric vehicles, here’s a compilation of this week’s news in numbers.The US-Israel-Iran conflict is threatening to put the global order in chaos, particularly for the flow of gas and oil. At its core is the Strait of Hormuz—a narrow chokepoint through which over a quarter of global oil trade passes—where Iran holds strategic control.According to Kpler's analysis of 223 container vessels between 28 February and 4 March, at least 37 were unable to exit the Gulf, meaning they cannot resume rotations until transit reopens.

₹18,000 crore ($2 billion) in realised and potential equity value over the company’s lifecycle.Even if the company lists closer to $10.5 billion, a steeply marked down valuation at which the IPO is widely expected, the value of that pool could still be around ₹13,000 crore, or about $1.4 billion.Of that, the options that still exist today and can convert into shares in the future, could be worth roughly $500-600 million.While other tech firms also use Esops to retain top talent, PhonePe’s rewards to its employees have seeded at least half a dozen “deca-millionaires”, or very high-net-worth individuals, in its top deck.And thanks to the payments platform's extravagant Esop structure, its top leadership has stuck around from its early Flipkart-acquisition in 2016 to the cusp of its IPO. (Walmart Inc.

Mumbai: The Indian stock markets slumped to their weakest weekly performance in 14 months, after conflict erupted in the Middle East between the US, Israel and Iran on 28 February.Benchmark indices NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex dropped nearly 3% through the week, marking their steepest decline since the week ended 22 December 2024, when markets had corrected over 4% amid concerns over the US Federal Reserve’s hawkish stance and rising bond yields.On Friday, the Nifty 50 fell 1.27% to close at 24,450.45, while the Sensex declined 1.37% to end at 78,918.88, extending their decline following the prior session’s relief rally.Rising crude oil prices and continued selling by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) weighed on sentiment. Currency weakness added further pressure, with the rupee hitting a record low of 92.1488 against the US dollar on 4 March (Wednesday).Market volatility also spiked during the week, with the India VIX (Volatility Index)—a measure of the market’s expectation of volatility in the Indian stock market over the next 30 days—rising from 13.70 to 19.88, signalling heightened investor nervousness and expectations of larger market swings ahead.To be sure, Indian equities’ fall was milder than several Asian markets.

New Delhi: Facing supply disruption from West Asia, the Indian government has directed all state-run and private-sector refineries in the country to step up production of domestic cooking gas by diverting feedstock away from the manufacturing of non-essential products, including petrochemicals.Using its powers under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, the ministry has directed all refiners to supply LPG to the three state-owned refiners – Indian Oil Corp Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd – which will in turn supply it only to domestic consumers of cooking gas.The development is significant as India has only about 25 days of LPG stock. Annual demand stands at 33.15 million tonnes, with imports servicing about 75-80% of this.

The central bank is proposing a safety net for one of the world's largest digital payment ecosystems, offering to partially reimburse victims of cyber fraud—even when the victims themselves are at fault.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday proposed that it, along with banks, will compensate victims of fraudulent digital banking transactions of up to ₹50,000. The customer will be paid up to 85% of the loss, or up to ₹25,000, whichever is lower.