Bullets

Accenture is looking to lay off 19,000 employees as it plans to "streamline operations" for the upcoming Q2FY23. While the size of the layoff is only 2.5% of the existing workforce of the Irish-American tech giant, the sheer number is far greater than the recent Google and Twitter layoffs combined.

So, in a way, Accenture hit a world record, just not the kind people would be looking forward to...

Deutsche Bank, the German multinational investment bank, has experienced a fall in its share price for the third day in a row. The reason for this collapse is contagion panic among investors and depositors alike, as SVB and Credit Suisse collapsed in recent history among liquidity crises.

The tumble started for Deutsche Bank on March 22 and has been falling consistently since. The prices have fallen from €9.90 to €8.54 since.

Watch Insider and find out if India's next.

To pay debts worth $2 billion maturing by June, Vedanta Ltd. is in a pickle. From finding ways to raise funds to the dropping share price, they sure have a lot on their plate.

Multiple sources claim the company’s plan to sell a 10% stake even after founder Anil Agarwal denied the allegations.

These “baseless rumours” are only going to pile up in the upcoming months as Vedanta prepares to pay up the humongous debt amount.

Hindenburg seems to have acquired a taste for the big guys now. After attacking Adani, the research organisation's next target is ex-Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

The latest report accuses Dorsey's newly formed payment platform, Block, of committing accounting fraud and inflating metrics. The report also claims that the stock has a 65%-75% downside "on a purely fundamental basis".

Dorsey's wealth experienced its biggest single-day fall of 11% by $526 million, reducing his worth to $4.4 billion.

The Indian government is working towards its FY23 divestment plan by selling a 3.5% stake in Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL). The sale is being held on Thursday & Friday at the floor price of ₹2,450 per share. 

This price comes with a whooping discount of 6.7% to ₹2,625.20, yesterday’s closing price on the BSE. 

Will the government's attempt to accomplish ₹50,000 crore divestment target be fulfilled, or will the target price see a decline again?

The US Fed has hiked interest rates by 0.25% for the 9th time in a row. This hike seems counterintuitive among the two US bank collapses due to liquidity crises as the interest rates kept rising.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stated that the US banking system is not necessarily in trouble, but the management at SVB "failed badly".

Whether the Fed is playing a blame game or there is a sound reason behind these hikes, only time will tell.

“Chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcounts!” Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy said while laying off 9,000 employees. AWS (Amazon Web services), Twitch, Advertising, People eXperience & Technology are some departments being axed.

The e-Commerce company, Amazon earlier announced (in January) to remove 18,000 of their workforce.  

Is this a race for adaptability to the unstable economy or are giants like Meta & Amazon being the sheep in following the trend?

The spot price for gold has crossed the lifetime high mark of ₹60,000 per 10 grams. The last lifetime high peak was observed around August 2020, with prices around ₹57,000 which has been reached and breached since January this year.

Reasons for this hike include a rise in the demand for the lustrous metal as well as the fall in the value of the Indian Rupee against the US Dollar.

Hopefully, the demand for gold is for jewellery, not investments.

After Tata Consumer Products dropped the acquisition plans for packaged water giant, Bisleri, Jayanti Chauhan took the reigns. Jayanti, vice-chairperson & daughter of Bisleri International Chairman, Ramesh Chauhan, will work with CEO Angelo George. 

Two years of discussions with talks of ₹7000 crore for the brand ended with Tata Consumer backing out last week.

Indecisiveness wasted two years spent on the deal. Is Tata’s ship wobbling with the sudden change in reigns, or is this just a coincidence?

Credit Suisse is about to pull a Yes Bank as Switzerland's largest bank, Union Bank of Switzerland, has agreed to buy the recently crashed Credit Suisse for $3.25 billion. Shareholders of Credit Suisse will get UBS' shares in a 22.48:1 ratio.

Swiss Finance minister Karin Keller-Sutter could be reported saying that the merger was a "commercial solution and not a bailout". That's rich, considering Credit Suisse recently needed a $54 billion fund infusion from the Swiss central bank.

Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO & MD of Tata Consultancy Services resigns from his pedestal unexpectedly. K Krithivasan, president & global head of BFSI at TCS succeeded Gopinathan on 16th March 2023.  

Having spent 22 & 27 years with TCS & the group, respectively, Gopinathan now wishes to follow other interests. His resignation will be effective from 15th September 2023 following a smooth transition for the CEO-designate, Krithivasan.

Let’s hope TCS does not go through a Mistry mishap.

IndusInd bank has decided to withdraw its insolvency proceedings against Zee Entertainment Entreprises, an Essel Group company. The proceedings were initiated by NCLT in February after IndusInd raised a petition for the same.

The reason behind the aforementioned petition was the failure of the entertainment company to pay back a ₹83 crore repayment to the bank.

The withdrawal of the proceedings could be a positive marker for Zee as it tries to merge with Sony, forming India's largest media company.

India’s largest omnichannel eyewear company, Lenskart, has signed an agreement with ADIA to raise $500 million. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is now the largest shareholder of Lenskart, with a 10% stake. 

Lenskart has been raising funding to improve its footing in international markets since last year. This agreement was part of the secondary fundraising that allowed Lenskart to maintain its valuation of $4.5 billion. 

This fund would facilitate Lenskart’s presence in the Middle East & Southeast Asian markets.

Foxconn is planning to set up a $200 million manufacturing plant in Telangana as it has won the contract rights to manufacture Apple's AirPods in India. Apple has recently been trying to shift its dependency on China. Foxconn intends to capitalise on this shift by increasing its footprint in India.

This is the first instance of Foxconn winning the contract to manufacture a non-iPhone Apple product.

This change could be beneficial for Indian customers and manufacturers of Apple products alike.

Shaking the workforce of Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the plan to let go of 10,000 employees in April 2023. A thorough restructuring is ongoing to flatten the management.

Meta has labelled 2023 as the “Year of Efficiency” and is thus going to come forward with ample structure changes. Facebook founder posts mentioned the positive effect of this step towards increasing productivity.

How Meta’s new era will affect its employees, in the long run, is hard to predict.

India's largest lending bank SBI has decided to increase its interest rate by 70 basis points, or 0.7%. This sets its current benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) and base rate to 14.85% and 10.10%, respectively.

The Marginal Cost of Funds Based Lending Rate (MCLR) has remained the same, however, following its final hike on February 15, 2023, by 0.1%.

The rate hikes will be applicable from 15th March 2023.

Indian stock market indices, Sensex and Nifty, have hit their lowest points in 365 days, dropping below the 60,000 and 17,200 points marks, respectively. Over the last year, the indices fell by 5.12% and 6.06%, respectively.

These lows can be a result of various factors, such as stricter monetary policies to reduce the excess money supply generated during the pandemic and the exit of foreign institutional investors from domestic markets.

The real question is, "Is time for "discount shopping" here?"

After the financial crisis & staff sacking, the car repair startup GoMechanic seems ready for a takeover. The acquirer is going to be the infamous used-car company CarTrade.

As per inside sources, GoMechanic has been valued at about $30 million, which is around ₹245 crore. The startup was valued at ₹285 crore before the revelation of book cooking by co-founder Amit Bhasin.

Whether this acquisition is the crack of dawn the startup needs is yet to be seen!

The Adani Group wants to raise funds by selling around 4.5% of its stake in Ambuja Cements. Based on reports so far, the deal is estimated to be worth around ₹3,380 crore.

Adani Group declared its acquisition of Ambuja and ACC Cements in May of 2022 and completed the deal by September of the same year. The value of this acquisition stood at $10.5 billion, out of which $1.1 billion was raised by pledging shares of various listed Adani entities.

Reliance is looking to launch Tira, its beauty and makeup brand, through offline stores soon, starting with Mumbai. Currently, the business operates through an e-commerce platform open only to Reliance employees.

Reliance has been strategically investing in the beauty industry through companies like Naturals Salon & Spa and Insight Cosmetics. Reliance has also been looking to acquire Indian rights to LVMH's Sephora.

Are Nykaa's days of beauty coming to an end as makeup becomes a "cash burn and takeover" game?