Breaking News - 25th August 2023

1. Zepto raises $200 million, becomes first unicorn of 2023:

An online grocery delivery company called Zepto has managed to collect a huge amount of money, $200 million, from investors in what they call a Series-E fundraising round. This event has caused the company to be valued at a whopping $1.4 billion. This valuation means that Zepto is now officially one of those special companies called a "unicorn" because it's worth a lot of money. 

The main investor leading this fundraising effort is a company named StepStone Group, which is based in the United States. Interestingly, this is the first time that StepStone Group has directly invested in a company from India. Another company that invests money, called Goodwater Capital, also joined in and became a new supporter of Zepto. What's nice to know is that the people who already invested money in Zepto before, like Nexus Venture Partners and Glade Brook Capital, decided to give even more money this time around. 

Back in 2022, Zepto had collected $200 million in a previous round of fundraising, and that made them worth $900 million at that time. The folks who started Zepto, Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, left Stanford University and began this company in 2021. Now, Zepto is thinking about becoming a public company, which means regular people might be able to buy shares of it in a stock market, but that might take a couple more years. They've also promoted some important people within their company recently as they get ready for this big step. 

2. Anil Agarwal considering listing Vedanta business separately ‘to ensure better returns for investors’:

The big company called Vedanta Limited is thinking about doing something interesting. They might decide to split up their different businesses and make each part its own separate company. Right now, Vedanta does a bunch of things like working with metals and mining, oil & gas, and maybe even making computer chips. 

The boss of Vedanta, a person named Anil Agarwal, talked about this in a video on YouTube. He said that they're considering the idea, but they're going to talk to the people who own parts of the company (called shareholders) before making a final choice. 

The reason they're thinking about doing this is that they believe it could be a good way to make more money for the people who invest in Vedanta. Instead of owning just one type of business, if you have a share of Vedanta, you might end up having shares in a bunch of different companies. This could be useful because some companies from other countries might want to invest money in a specific area, and this way, they'd get that chance. 

3. India considers reducing import tax on EV post Tesla's investment proposal:

The Indian government is thinking about making electric cars cheaper to bring into the country. They might do this if foreign car companies agree to work with Indian factories. This idea came up because Elon Musk's company, Tesla, wants to build a car factory in India to sell their cars here. 

Right now, when electric cars are brought into India, a tax is added that makes them more expensive. But, if car companies team up with Indian factories, the government might make this tax much lower. For cars that are very expensive (costing more than ₹33 Lakhs), the tax could be reduced from 100% to as low as 15%. And for cheaper cars, the tax could go down from 70% to the same 15%. This change could encourage more electric cars to come to India. 

4. Indian Oil to invest $30 billion towards energy transition:

The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), a government-run company, plans to invest a huge amount of money, $30 billion, in projects that are good for the environment. This money will be used for a bunch of different activities to help the environment, like making sure the company's operations are more eco-friendly. 

The person in charge of the company, Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, talked about this plan during a big meeting. He said that this investment shows that the company really wants to help India with its goals of using cleaner energy and fighting climate change. 

A big chunk of this money will be spent on doing fancy research and development to come up with new ideas and technologies. These new things will help make less pollution and show that the company wants to be a leader in finding clean energy solutions. 

Indian Oil will also spend some of the money on getting more into renewable energy, like using the power of the sun and the wind to make energy. They want to help give India the energy it needs without causing too much harm to the environment. 

But they're not stopping there. Indian Oil also has a strong goal to make sure that by 2046, they won't create any pollution while doing their work. This includes taking care of the pollution that comes directly from their operations and from the energy they use. 

Indian Oil has been doing good things for the environment, and because of that, people all over the world have noticed. They even got a good ranking from a group that looks at how companies are doing when it comes to using cleaner energy. 

5. Vodafone Idea share price jumps over 9% on fundraising reports:

Vodafone Idea, saw its stock price go up by more than 9% on Friday. This happened because they told the Department of Telecommunications that many investors are interested in giving them money in exchange for a share of the company. The stock price started the day at a low of ₹8.03 per share and ended at ₹8.67 per share, which is a 9.06% increase. This is the fourth day in a row that Vodafone Idea's stock price has gone up. 

The CEO of Vodafone Idea, Akshaya Moondra, recently talked about their financial performance. He mentioned that they want to pay ₹1,680 crore to the Department of Telecommunications for using certain airwaves that help their mobile services. This payment is for an auction that happened in 2022." 

6. L&T share price up 41% in last one year; should you still buy it? 
 
The price of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) shares went down by nearly 2% in the morning when trading started on Friday. The price started at ₹2,686.95, which is lower than the price it closed at last time, which was ₹2,687.50. During Friday's trading, the price went as low as ₹2,637.55. People who watch the stock market say this might be happening because some investors are selling their L&T shares to make a profit, especially since the price had gone up a lot recently. 

L&T's share price has done better compared to a measure of overall stock market performance called the Sensex. In the past year, L&T's share price has gone up by more than 41%, while the Sensex has only gone up by about 11%. 

People who study the stock market and companies believe that L&T is a good investment for the long term. A big company that gives advice about investing, called CLSA, said that India's successful landing of Chandrayaan 3 on the moon is a good thing for the country. They think it will help Indian companies like L&T compete globally in making things like rockets and satellites. 

7. Could Mukesh Ambani be getting into the hotel business? 

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) recently announced that they're teaming up with Oberoi Hotels and Resorts to work together on three properties in India and the UK. 

These properties include a new hotel called Anant Vilas in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex, a famous place called Stoke Park in the UK, and another project they're planning in Gujarat. 

RIL mentioned that Anant Vilas is going to be a fancy hotel in the heart of Mumbai's busy business area. 

Stoke Park, which is owned by RIL, has things like a hotel, places to play sports, and even a highly rated golf course in Europe. 

Oberoi Hotels will help RIL improve these places to make them even better and give guests an amazing experience. 

There's another project happening in Gujarat, but it doesn't have a name yet and is still being worked on.

8. Jio Financial removal from Sensex, other indices deferred by another 3 days: 

Jio Financial Services (JFS) has faced a situation where its shares have gone down a lot in a row, causing some changes to be delayed. They were supposed to be removed from important stock measures like BSE Sensex and Nifty50, but this has been postponed because the shares have been dropping consistently for three days. 

A company that decides about these measures said that they will wait for another three days before taking any action. The original plan was to remove Jio Financial Services from these measures starting on August 24th. 

The value of Jio Financial Services' shares has gone down by 5% for the day, and it's now worth less in total. Since it was introduced on the stock market, its value has gone down by more than 15%. 

Experts think that the reason for this drop in value is because big investors are selling their shares. They believe that the situation will improve eventually, and people who invest should consider the company's value in the long term, especially after the panic selling stops." 

9. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das calls for stronger governance in NBFCs, HCFs:

The head of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Shaktikanta Das, had a meeting with the bosses of big finance companies that are not banks (known as NBFCs) and housing finance companies (HFCs) on Friday. In the meeting, he talked about the importance of having strong rules for how these companies are managed, being careful about risky lending without proper security, and managing risks better. 

The RBI mentioned that these types of companies make up about half of all the money that these non-bank finance companies have, including those focused on housing. 

Other important people from the RBI were also at the meeting, like Deputy Governors Shri M. Rajeshwar Rao and Shri Swaminathan J., as well as the Managing Director of the National Housing Bank, Shri S. K. Hota, along with a few senior officials from the RBI. 

The RBI Governor praised these companies for doing better in terms of money and being strong during tough times. He said that even though they're doing well, they should stay careful and not get too comfortable, especially when the times are good. 

10. Paytm share price rallies over 3% to hit 52-week high on block deal buzz, hopes of MSCI inclusion: 

The price of Paytm's shares went up by more than 3%, reaching the highest value they've had in a year. This happened because a lot of the company's shares were bought and sold in a series of big deals. 

A company named Antfin, which is connected to Jack Ma, wanted to sell some of its ownership in Paytm. They were planning to sell a specific amount of shares for a certain price. This would make their ownership in Paytm become smaller. 

Before this, Antfin had already sold a big portion of its ownership to another company owned by Paytm's founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Now, with these new deals, Antfin's ownership in Paytm will become even smaller, and Paytm's founder will become the main owner. This is seen as a good thing because it reduces the influence of Chinese ownership in Paytm.