Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in India are expected to stay buoyant, seen over the last three-four years, despite a slowdown in the first seven months of the calendar year. "M&A is a lumpy business activity, and we may suddenly see large deals taking place during the next two quarters of the calendar year. "This would help maintain the streak of strong M&A activity.

38 auditors resigned in 2022-23, compared with 46 the previous year.

The combined market capitalisation of Adani Group companies fell by Rs 54,876 crore, to Rs 10.92 trillion, as investor sentiment turned bearish on Wednesday. Shares of Adani Transmission fell by 7.7 per cent to close at Rs 886 while those of Adani Power lost 7.1 per cent to end the day at Rs 323. The stock of Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of the group, lost 6.2 per cent to finish at Rs 2,530.

Tata Sons chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran was paid Rs. 113 crore as remuneration for 2022-23 (FY23), including Rs. 100 crore as commission on profit. Chandrasekaran, 60, often referred to as Chandra, received a remuneration of Rs. 109 crore in 2021-22 (FY22). With this, Chandra has emerged as one of the highest-paid chief executive officers (CEO) in Corporate India for FY23.

The Adani group has exited the financial services business by selling its entire 90 per cent stake in Adani Capital and Adani Housing to private equity (PE) firm Bain Capital for Rs 1,440 crore. The total valuation of the Adani financial services business stands at Rs 1,600 crore. Gaurav Gupta, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Adani firms will hold the rest of the stake.

Vedanta Ltd, which is planning to restart its copper plant in Tamil Nadu, is weighing the option to sell the unit at a valuation of up to Rs 4,500 crore, banking sources have said. The company had sought expressions of interest (EoIs) for the plant in June last year but did not get a good response as the unit was shut for the last five years. "The process has now restarted with the bankers reaching out to potential bidders," said a banker.

The Adani group will be generating almost 90 percent of its Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) from infrastructure business by 2025 as compared to 83 per cent generated from these businesses currently, top company officials told bankers recently. Of the infrastructure business, 49 per cent of the profits are currently contributed by energy and utility, another 25 per cent by transport and rest by cement and logistics businesses. This will go up substantially as several new projects like Navi Mumbai airport and other projects get commissioned and contribute to the overall Ebitda pie, bankers were told.

Japan's Sony Corporation, which is merging its Indian television content company with Zee Entertainment Enterprises, is likely to seek a fresh forensic audit of the company after market regulator Sebi levelled fund diversion charges against Zee promoters, top lawyers said. The Sebi also barred Zee founder Subhash Chandra and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Puneet Goenka from holding any position as director. "As the Sebi has made fund diversion charges, which may change the nature of audited reports already filed, the acquirer (Sony) can seek a fresh forensic audit," said H P Ranina, a corporate lawyer.

An increased brand fee paid by India-listed Vedanta, apart from record dividend, has helped Vedanta Resources (VRL) - the London-based holding company of Vedanta Group - to repay part of its debt. Vedanta paid a brand fee of Rs 2,632 crore ($325 million) for 2022-23 (FY23), according to Nomura report. This was after the Anil Agarwal-owned holding company raised the brand fee to 2 per cent of the turnover for its Indian businesses in 2021.

Vedanta group chairman, Anil Agarwal, 69, is well known for his business journey from a scrap dealer from Bihar to a London-based globe-girdling metal and oil and gas conglomerate with revenues of $19 billion. Now his abilities to keep his group from over-leveraging itself will be put to the test. Over the years, Agarwal, now based in London, set up the conglomerate via acquiring iron ore producer Sesa Goa, Cairn's oil producing assets in India, and Electrosteel Steel.

On Thursday, Adani Enterprises announced that it will not go ahead with acquiring Macquarie group's two road companies at an enterprise valuation of Rs 3,100 crore.

Global investment management firm Bernstein has pegged the enterprise valuation of Reliance Industries (RIL)'s 85 per cent stake in Reliance Retail at $111 billion, while valuing the Mukesh Ambani-led company's 66.5 per cent stake in telecom and digital platform arm Reliance Jio at $88 billion. Reliance Industries had earlier planned to list both its subsidiaries to unlock value for its shareholders but hadn't fixed any timeline. The report said that Reliance Retail had raised $6 billion by diluting a 10.1 per cent stake, while Jio Platforms raised $20 billion from investors by selling 33 per cent in 2020.

Ahmedabad-based Nirma group and leading private equity firms have joined the race to acquire BSE-listed Glenmark Life Sciences. The acquisition by chemicals-to-cement major Nirma, if successful, would be a major boost for the health-care segment of the group, on the lines of its successful entry into the cement sector following its purchase of Lafarge India's assets for about Rs 9,400 crore in July 2016. It later followed up by buying Emami cement assets for Rs 5,500 crore in February 2020.

Adani Group is expected to report a 20 per cent rise in its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) at Rs 61,200 crore for the year that ended in March 2023 (2022-23, or FY23), according to a note submitted by the group to lenders recently. The group had earned Ebitda of Rs 57,299 crore in the preceding financial year that ended in March 2022 (2021-22). The group's gross debt was Rs 2.27 trillion as of March 31, 2023, and has projected to not take on additional debt until it lowers its existing one.

Reliance Industries, construction major L&T and IRB Infrastructure are some of the top companies that have used an infrastructure investment trust structure to reduce part of their debt and generate returns for their investors. Earlier this month, IRB Infrastructure InvIT was listed on the National Stock Exchange, giving its investors an option to exit by selling their units. The listing came within months of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.

Lenders have postponed the second auction to sell bankrupt Reliance Capital's assets by a week to April 11, even as the Torrent group, the highest bidder in the first round, pursues litigation in the Supreme Court. Lenders are expecting the Hinduja group and Torrent to participate in the second auction and maximise the value of the assets. American financial services major, Oakteee may also join the race, said a source.

The billionaire Mistry family's estate is likely to soon change hands. The assets in the name of Cyrus Mistry, who died in September last year, may soon be divided equally among his wife Rohiqa and sons Firoz and Zahan, according to sources. The reorganisation will also include the 9.2 per cent stake in Tata Sons, which is currently in Cyrus Mistry's name and held through his investment company Cyrus Investments.

The Hinduja group is learnt to have backtracked from making a minimum Rs 8,950-crore offer for Reliance Capital (RCap) - a deal that it had belatedly put forth in December, after Torrent Investments emerged as the highest bidder for the bankrupt firm in the challenge process. The Hindujas' latest move has put Indian lenders, with an exposure of Rs 24,000 crore, in a spot as it was the former's revised offer that led to a call for a second auction and litigation by Torrent, which had placed a bid of Rs 8,649 crore in the first auction. Torrent has moved the Supreme Court and plans to wait for the apex court verdict before participating in any fresh auction. A banking source said there was an informal meeting of a few lenders of Reliance Capital with the bidders - the Torrent group and the Hinduja group on Friday when the latter changed its stand. The meeting of RCap's committee of creditors (CoC) is scheduled for Monday.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by Indian companies have declined sharply by 80 per cent so far this year, in contrast with the same period last year, as bankers predict lower deal volumes due to falling profit margins of Indian companies and feeble stock markets. The decline in Adani Group shares has also hit buyer sentiment. According to data from Refinitiv, M&As in India stood at $3.3 billion from 253 deals, year-to-date (YTD) - a fall of 80 per cent year-on-year (YoY). Cross-border deals by Indian companies were also down 84 per cent to just $1.5 billion.

Vedanta investors were jittery on Tuesday as its share price fell and bond yields of its parent firm rose following concerns raised by a rating agency on its capability to repay debt maturing later this year. Shares of the mining and metals major were down by 7 per cent on Tuesday to Rs 268 a piece on the BSE. The company has lost market valuation of 30 per cent in the last one year and 13 per cent since January 1 this year. Yields on the bonds of Vedanta Resources, the parent firm of the BSE-listed Vedanta, shot up to 39.8 per cent - showing investors' rising concern over the group's debt situation