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livemint.com / 3 months ago
livemint.com / 3 months ago
livemint.com / 3 months ago
livemint.com / 3 months ago
How fake invoices duped BlackRock Unit into a $400 million loan
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. BlackRock went all in on Wall Street’s booming business of private lending last July when it acquired HPS Investment Partners, a firm founded by alumni of Goldman Sachs that was one of the stars of the sector. Days after the deal closed, an analyst at HPS’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters spotted a big problem.
The company was the lead lender on a more-than $400 million credit agreement with a telecom entrepreneur, Bankim Brahmbhatt, accepting as collateral accounts receivable the executive’s firm had acquired from other businesses. Reviewing those invoices, the analyst noticed that the email address domain on one didn’t match what was on the website of the company it was supposed to be from. HPS dug deeper, and found the same issue again and again.
The lender scrambled to get answers from Brahmbhatt, but he had left for India and eventually stopped picking up the phone. Two weeks later, HPS was in court accusing Brahmbhatt of carrying out a “breathtaking" fraud. The emails were fake, the invoices were fake—and the collateral was worthless, they alleged.
Brahmbhatt disputes the allegations of fraud, his lawyer said last fall. The wipeout of HPS’s loan took Wall Street by surprise. How could one of the most sophisticated private-lending firms in the world be so badly duped? Why didn’t anyone spot the issue before BlackRock, the world’s largest asset-management firm, sealed its deal with HPS? Could similar frauds be lurking in the $3 trillion dollar private-lending industry? The borrower in this case hardly fit the profile of a sure bet for a lender.
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21.05 / 10:17
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How chronic illness became a starting point for artistic alchemy for Koshy Brahmatmaj
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Pain is invisible; the sufferer has to make noise for it to be acknowledged, treated or accepted. Mumbai-based artist Koshy Brahmatmaj, 34, lives with chronic endometriosis, a painful condition that afflicts millions of women around the world.
21.05 / 10:17
markets
UPS
IPO
NVIDIA
SpaceX
Even at $5 trillion, Nvidia is underappreciated
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Nvidia is no longer the only AI chip game in town. But it is the largest by far, and the likelihood that it will be that way for the foreseeable future should count for something.It hasn’t counted for much lately.
21.05 / 10:17
markets
Digital
CEO
War
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RK Swamy bets on integrated advertising model as global agency giants split media and creative
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21.05 / 09:47
markets
IPO
Racing
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SpaceX
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21.05 / 09:47
markets
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FPIs exit Korea & Taiwan: Is India ready for the flow rotation?
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PI Industries’ weak core business keeps investors on edge
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.PI Industries stock has fallen 11% over the past two trading sessions as pressure in its custom synthesis and manufacturing (CSM) business persisted. CSM revenues have now declined year-on-year for five consecutive quarters. The segment, which contributed about 75% of the agrochemicals maker’s FY26 revenue of ₹6,714 crore, saw revenue fall 16% year-on-year.Weak demand and customers’ shift to just-in-time procurement continued to weigh on the CSM business, where revenue declined 15% in the March quarter (Q4FY26), though that marked an improvement from the 32% drop in Q3FY26.Management said the global crop-protection market remains stuck in a prolonged multi-year downturn, resulting in an uneven recovery.
21.05 / 09:47
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‘Should I Marry a Murderer?’ has left audiences stunned but what they saw wasn’t all that bizarre
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.In the new Netflix documentary series Should I Marry a Murderer?, Caroline Muirhead, a Scottish forensic pathologist, falls in love with Sandy McKellar, a man who, after proposing, reveals to her that he and his brother have committed a homicide. What follows is baffling: Even after Muirhead turns him in to the police, she returns to his side.
21.05 / 08:45
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Secured credit cards: Unlocking credit and building a credit score for millions
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Forensic audits support corporate-fraud probes and IBC cases but still lack enforceable standards
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Forensic audits have gained significance in today’s world of business as they serve as a useful tool for commercial lenders to investigate fraud by borrowers and/or identify other deep-seated financial irregularities. Forensic auditors are also employed by resolution professionals to report on preferential, undervalued, fraudulent and extortionate (‘PUFE’) transactions for adjudication under India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). While there is no single universal definition, several globally recognized organizations have provided widely accepted definitions (and norms) of forensic auditing.
21.05 / 08:45
UPS
Manufacturing
Mobile
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electronic
Why Dixon, Syrma and Kaynes are moving beyond smartphones: margin pressure
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: India’s listed electronics manufacturers are under pressure to defend profitability as the mobile-phone assembly boom slows, prompting a shift towards higher-value industrial electronics.Investors remained jittery through the last fiscal, driven by concerns that slowing consumer sentiment could weigh on the rapid growth that electronics manufacturing services (EMS) firms have delivered so far.In an interview with Mint, Jasbir Singh Gujral, managing director of Syrma SGS Technology Ltd, India’s second-largest listed EMS firm, said, “We’re increasingly looking to capture a larger chunk of contracts from defence, aerospace and med-tech verticals, all of which represent opportunities for original design manufacturing, and also bring significantly higher margins. We’ve already started this transition, and we plan to do more of it this fiscal.”Beyond mobile phones and laptops, EMS firms are expanding into smart metres for electricity boards, aerospace and defence subsystems, railway safety instrumentation, printed circuit boards and display assemblies, and medical devices deployed in hospitals.India’s annual mobile phone shipments have remained subdued since the covid-19 pandemic, with industry estimates pointing to a single-digit decline this calendar year from 152 million smartphones shipped last year.The margin pressure driving this shift is increasingly visible.In FY26, Syrma SGS reported an operating margin of 7.1%, up 2.3 percentage points.
