Newsletter
IndusInd in trouble, A surgical bet and, More energy deals.
Morning, itâs Wednesday!
Dalal Street shook off U.S. recession fears as Sensex closed flat while Nifty edged higher by the dayâs end.
Bank stocks struggled, with Axis Bank slipping nearly 1% and HDFC Bank dragging Bank Nifty lower, because IndusInd Bank couldnât do math.
Meanwhile, real estate stocks had a field dayâPhoenix Mills, DLF, and Oberoi Realty jumped 3-4%, leading the gains.
đĄ Spotlight: personal income tax collections grew to âč10.4 lakh crore in FY24, nearly 4x higher, now accounting for 3.5% of GDP.
This underscores a sustained effort to formalize Indiaâs economy.
1 Big Thing: Airtel & SpaceX are bringing Starlink to India đ
Bharti Airtel teamed up with Elon Muskâs SpaceX to bring Starlinkâs high-speed satellite internet to India.
As part of the deal Airtel will sell Starlink hardware across its retail store network. Additionally, Airtel will also provide Starlink solutions to its business-customers, particularly those in remote parts of India with sketchy internet.
Think defense bases, oil rigs, healthcare service providers, factories, and more.
What to consider: Government policies on satellite communications are still evolving, and collaborating with SpaceX could give Airtel an early-mover advantage in the space.
Zoom out: Satellite internet is rapidly becoming a threat to regular mobile internet services, and generally speaking, the telcos who have betted billions on mobile infrastructure are working to secure their ops from disruption.
Big picture: India comes 2nd in internet usage with approximately 949 million broadband subscribers, making it a lucrative market for regional and global players.
Investors liked the moveâAirtel ended over 2% higher yesterday.
Worth noting: a day after Airtel inked a deal with SpaceX, Reliance Jio has now jumped in, signing its own pact to bring Starlinkâs services to India.
2. IndusInd in hot water đ
IndusInd Bank just had a brutal day on Dalal Street, with shares crashing 27% after an internal review flagged errors in derivative accounts.
What to know: in simple words, the bank misvalued some of its holdings in, not accounting for expenses related to protecting its downside. In all, this would mean the banks net worth is actually ~2.5% lower than what they originally claimed.
The bank estimates the errors will impact its net worth by 2.4%, potentially reducing Q4 FY25 profits by âč1,500 crore.
But investors donât take such oversights lightly, now questioning the bankâs processes entirely. Markets started dumping stock and slashed the bankâs value by 25% in no time.
What next: an internal inquiry will be conducted, along with a third party inquiry to verify the bankâs numbers.
While such issues are routine in the banking world, theyâre not expected to be common with such large and well followed organizations.
3. Zydus bets on medtech đŠŽ
Zydus Life is acquiring an 85.6% stake in Franceâs Amplitude Surgical SA for $274 million.
The deets: Amplitude specializes in orthopedic implants and surgical solutions, focusing on hip, knee, and lower limb reconstruction procedures. The company develops cutting-edge prosthetics and minimally invasive surgical tech.
The deal strengthens Zydusâ global presence.
The long-term plan is to squeeze-out the process to delist Amplitude Surgical from Euronext Paris.
Amplitude Surgical recorded a revenue of $115.7 million in FY2024.
4. Waaree bags a solar project âïž
Waaree Renewable, a solar energy solutions provider, secured a Letter of Award (LoA) for a âč740 crore solar power project, by a leading power distribution company.
Waaree has been scaling fast. Last year, it locked in a âč1,233 crore Engineering, Procurement, and Construction contract for a ground-mounted solar PV project.
Meanwhile, Indiaâs solar push is acceleratingâthe government recently launched a $1 billion subsidy to boost domestic solar panel manufacturing and reduce dependence on China.
While are we are on clean energy,
Hindustan Zinc joined hands with Serentica Renewables to boost its clean energy game with a one-of-a-kind agreement which guarantees 315 MW of round-the-clock power. This is unique because because it guarantees a steady flow of renewable energy every 15 minutes.
Its total renewable energy will increase to 530 MW from 450 MW.
5. OpenAI wants more computing power đ€
OpenAI inked a 5-year deal worth $11.9 billion with cloud provider CoreWeave, per Reuters.
CoreWeave, once a crypto mining firm, has transformed into an AI cloud powerhouse, running over 250,000 Nvidia GPUs across 32 data centres.
By the numbers: in 2024, its revenue skyrocketed to $1.9 billion, with Microsoft contributing 62% of that. But this new deal reduces CoreWeaveâs dependency on Microsoft and strengthens its IPO prospects.
Microsoft, OpenAIâs largest investor and primary cloud provider, is now investing in its own AI models and recently hired AI heavyweight Mustafa Suleyman.
Meanwhile, OpenAI has always been on a compute power hunt, and this deal secures exactly that.
What else are we snackinâ đż
đȘą SME tightrope: SEBI is tightening SME IPO rulesâcompanies now need a minimum âč1 crore operating profit over the last 2-3 years, and offer-for-sale is capped at 20%.
đ Leadership shift: Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida will step down next month. Chief Planning Officer Ivan Espinosa will take the wheel as his successor.
⥠Green ride alert: Uber teamed up with Refex Green Mobility to roll out 1,000 EVs across major cities by 2026.
đČ Milestone: PhonePe hit 600 million registered users as it gears up for IPO.
Thatâs a wrap! Donât let the weekday blues get to you.
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