New Delhi: DLF Ltd, India’s largest real estate developer, plans to cut its debt by a third by raising Rs.7,000 crore through two private equity (PE) deals and two real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the next 18 months, two people aware of the plan said.

The company expects to raise Rs.6,000 crore through REITs and Rs.1,000 crore through PE deals, according to both the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. One of the PE deals will be with Blackstone Group LP, the world’s largest PE firm, and is expected to be finalized by September, said one of the two people. This person is directly involved in the deal negotiations.

The BSE Sensex continued to trade in the negative terrain and was down over 70 points at 10.28 am on fresh selling by participants as July series in the derivatives segment began on a subdued note amid weak Asian cues.

At 10.28 am, BSE Sensex was down 78.81 points at 27,817.16. Similarly, Nifty was down 16.60 points at 8,381.40 during the same time.

BENGALURU: Cisco's chief technology and strategy officer Padmasree Warrior, who announced earlier this month that she is leaving the company, may be considering an advisory or Board role in India's third-largest IT services company Wipro.

Multiple sources told TOI that the Vijaywada-born Warrior, one of Silicon Valley's most influential technology leaders, is being wooed by Wipro. Warrior would be seen as a savvy addition at a time when the $7.5-billion IT company is attempting to bolster its digital and IP-based offerings and reduce dependence on the commoditized IT services business.

In an indication of how major lenders are fighting it out to get a share of the tepidly growing loan market, ICICI Bank - the country largest private sector lender - reduced its base rate by only five basis points (bps) to 9.7 per cent, to match its biggest rivals, State Bank of India (SBI) and HDFC Bank.

Loan demand, particularly from the corporate sector, has been sluggish amid a slowing economy while home and automobile loans are the only segments where banks are pushing.

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), apex body representing the Indian information technology (IT) industry, is planning to set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) with the help of the central government to train professionals in the nuances of big data and business analytics.

Speaking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the two-day Nasscom summit on big data and analytics, which started here on Thursday, Nasscom Chairman B V R Mohan Reddy said it had been working with the Centre on this.

NEW DELHI: The government will put on the block eight more mines after 10 mines are auctioned in the third phase, for which the process has already begun, a top official said on Wednesday.

"After these 10 mines (to be auctioned in third round in August), eight more mines are in the queue," coal secretary Anil Swarup told reporters here on the sidelines of minerals and metals conference.

MUMBAI: The benchmark BSE Sensex rebounded by 57 points in late morning trade on fresh buying in capital goods, healthcare, refinery, power and auto stocks.

Key benchmark indices had edged lower in early trade due to sustained selling in consumer durable, IT, FMCG, teck and banking shares amid tracking weakness in Asian markets and overnight slide at the Wall Street.

PayPal teamed up with Uber back in 2013 to offer the U.S. taxi-hailing service’s customers additional payment options. The world has changed a lot in those 18 months — Uber is now present in over 300 cities with China set to soon become its largest market — so, with that in mind, PayPal and Uber have extended their partnership to cover an additional 9 countries worldwide.

Now, Uber riders in Canada, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland can use PayPal to pay for their trips without using a credit card. That’s in addition to those in Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, UK and the U.S. who have had that option since 2013.

New Delhi: India’s state social security fund, undeterred by resistance from trade unions, will start investing in equity markets next month, the labour minister said, as part of a reform drive aimed at boosting the economy.

With more than $100 billion of assets from some 80-million members, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is one of the world’s largest. It will begin by investing in exchange traded funds, with the goal of earning higher returns.

After Singapore-based on-demand internet video provider Hooq launched operations here, now US-based internet streaming media company, Netflix has firmed up plans to enter India by 2016.

“We have said we plan to be nearly global by the end of 2016. We have nothing else to share at this point,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to TOI. The plans by Netflix to enter India are not new. Since 2013, there has been speculation of Netflix entering India, but due to several factors like licensing costs and internet infrastructure problems it haven’t started in India yet.

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