The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and HSBC India have signed an agreement to establish a $100 million partial guarantee program to support more than 0.4 million micro-borrowers, especially women running small businesses.

The agreement will provide financing of an equivalent of $30 million that will be initially disbursed to three micro finance institutions (MFIs) in India by April 2022.

Private equity firm Bain Capital will acquire a 24.98 per cent equity stake in IIFL Wealth Management from General Atlantic Singapore and FIH Mauritius, which is owned by Indian-Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa’s company Fairfax.

Bain Capital will acquire 22.15 million shares at Rs1,666 apiece for nearly Rs 3,700 crore. Shares of IIFL Wealth closed at Rs 1,666.5 on Wednesday.

Macquarie Group Ltd.’s asset management arm is exploring a sale of toll-road assets in India as the Australian company seeks to monetize some of its early bets in Asia’s third largest economy, according to people familiar with the matter.

Macquarie Asset Management is working with an adviser on the transaction, which could fetch about $400 million, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.

Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) on Wednesday said it signed a joint venture agreement with NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of the NTPC Limited, for renewable power projects in its command area.

DVC will hold 49 per cent and NTPC Renewable will hold 51 per cent in the JV company to implement renewable energy parks and projects including those approved under Ultra Mega Renewable Energy Power Parks Scheme and CPSU scheme.

A three-member team of Cricket Australia (CA) is in Mumbai to study the market situation in India and explore broadcasting partnership with Reliance Viacom Network.

The meeting is crucial as Reliance Viacom is likely to launch their Sports Channel in the next month. According to reports, the channel executives are meeting Cricket Australia officials to explore media rights partnership for the next cycle.

The country’s antitrust agency on Wednesday raided offices of tyre companies, including Germany's Continental AG and India's Apollo Tyres, and Ceat, in a case of suspected competition law violations, four sources told Reuters.

Shares of Apollo, one of India’s biggest tyre makers, fell as much as 3 per cent after Reuters first reported the raids, while CEAT dropped 2.2 per cent in the Mumbai market, which was trading higher.

India has cut coal supplies to the non-power sector and put on hold plans to increase the number of fuel auctions for utilities due to a slump in inventories at state government-owned utilities even as demand for electricity surges.

The supply cuts come months after India's most crippling coal shortage in the recent years led to power cuts lasting upto 14 hours in some states. The onset of summer has added to worries about power supply shortages in the country.

In a bizarre incident, thousands of mobile users in the US received spam texts from their own phone numbers, and leading telecom carrier Verizon Wireless now say there are "bad actors" behind the spam.

In some users' case, the spam link forwarded them to Channel One Russia, a Russian state media network, reports The Verge.

India has logged 1,233 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, Union Health Ministry informed on Wednesday.

With this, the active infections have dropped below 15,000.

The active caseload of COVID in India now stands at 14,704, contributing to 0.03 per cent of cumulative positive cases.

The stock of cigarette to hotels conglomerate ITC has gained around 19 per cent thus far in March, far outperforming its peers like Hindustan Unilever, which has lost 10 per cent during this period.

Peers such as Godrej Consumer Products, Britannia, Nestle India, Dabur India and Marico, too, have lost 7 per cent to 11 per cent in March.

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