Humble beginnings Permata, who was born and raised in Indonesia, has always been an overachiever. “I’m born from a very simple family ... we didn’t come from money, so I had to really earn everything that I wanted,” she said, adding that her parents were always strict and demanding with her. “I was always expected to deliver, to be number one, to succeed academically,” she said. “I always liked property, because, living with very strict parents — [it was] my house, my rules. So, I thought I wanted to own my own house, so I could have my own rules,” Permata said. She said she was studious, competitive and “always focused on academics” as a kid. By the age of 23, she had already purchased an investment property, the first of several. Upon graduating from university, she went on to pursue an almost decade-long corporate career, eventually landing a senior vice president role at Southeast Asian on-demand services platform Gojek, where she met Pinhome co-founder Ahmed Aljunied. After working at Gojek for about four years, Permata said she felt ready to embark on her own entrepreneurial journey. “I think at the end of my time at Gojek, [the company] was operating in 200 plus cities in all of Indonesia,” she said. “I had worked with my CTO, Ahmed ... [He] was always very entrepreneurial. He had built businesses before, and he [said]: ‘Why don’t we start our own?’” ‘Fail fast, learn fast’ So in early 2019, the two began ideating and building the business out of Permata’s home garage. Over the course of about nine months, Permata said she invested about $150,000 of her own savings into bootstrapping the company. “My husband was my first employee. We had our first five team members working out of our [garage]. It was really like nine months of bootstrapping,” she said. “I was also working full time at Gojek, and it was still quite long hours that [I was working there], but we managed to squeeze in time [for our startup.]” Informed by her own experiences as a property investor, Permata knew she wanted to address the many pain points in Indonesian real estate. She said the process of buying and maintaining property was very “manual” and “fragmented.” “All the pain of searching for a home, and connecting with agents ... [It’s a] six to nine month process, all on WhatsApp, and you’re dealing with complete strangers ... and I thought: ‘Why is it so traditional and why hasn’t technology transformed the sector?’” Permata and her co-founder felt that the real estate sector in Indonesia was ripe for transformation. “We tested different business models ... In the first business model, we were exploring crowdfunding for real estate. The second business model, we were exploring property management. Then the third time, we were exploring ... co-ownership of real estate,” she said. “We went through that iteration almost every two or three months,” she said. After testing a few failed ideas, Permata and Aljunied landed on their fourth idea, which ultimately became what Pinhome is today — an end-to-end property transaction platform that offers brokerage, mortgage and home services. Pinhome was launched in January 2020 and serves more than 3.5 million monthly active users across its website and mobile apps today, according to a company representative. “Fail fast, learn fast. That’s how you get closer to success,” Permata suggested. “Try to fail every day, but learn from it ... I think that will help you with your stamina in the long run, because it isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.” “If you are not managing your energy well, then you might quit before you reach success,” she added.

Japan’s farm minister Taku Eto stepped down on Wednesday, domestic media reported, following public outrage over his comments on getting free rice. Eto said on Sunday that he has never had to buy rice as he received ample amounts of the grain as gifts from supporters — a comment that struck a nerve with locals struggling with rocketing prices of the beloved staple. Japan has been grappling with soaring rice prices for months as inclement weather and the country’s long-held policy to protect local farmers’ interests crimps supplies. Taku’s resignation comes at a time when Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s government has been grappling with low approval ratings ahead of a pivotal Upper House election this summer and ongoing tariff negotiations with the U.S. NHK World reported that former Environment Minister Koizumi Shinjiro will succeed Eto. Ishiba’s cabinet approval rating dropped to an all-time low of 27.4%, as voters grow increasingly discontent with the administration’s failure to address soaring rice prices and rejection of consumption tax cuts in response to rising inflation, according to a Kyodo News poll released Sunday. While Japan’s agriculture ministry has been trying to curb soaring prices by releasing government stockpiles, the move has yielded little effect in reining in prices. Rice prices in around 1,000 supermarkets nationwide reportedly climbed to all-times high in the week ending May 11. Prices for a 5-kilogram bag of rice rose 54 yen week-on-week to 4,268 yen ($29.63) “Following Japan’s rice shortage and subsequent high prices in summer 2024, prices have continued to soar, despite the arrival of the new domestic crop and record imports,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a March report. The spike in rice prices reflects the lingering effects of poor harvests last year, with domestic rice consumption being overwhelmingly supported by local production rather than imports, said HSBC’s chief Asia economist Frederic Neumann. Straining the supply side issue is the fact that rice in Japan is produced mostly by elderly people running small farms, so they’re not very efficient, said Sayuri Shirai, a professor of economics under Keio University’s faculty of policy management, who added that the number of farmers are also dropping with the ageing population. “Japanese like Japanese rice. They don’t really like foreign rice,” she said. Japan’s rice economy remains fairly isolated from the world market, with stiff duties on imported rice aimed at protecting its rice farmers. To make matters worse, demand for Japanese rice has skyrocketed on the back of high tourist footfall, the professor noted. The sharp increase in rice prices is also partly attributable to panic-driven hoarding by both households and businesses, said Takuji Okubo, chief economist at Japan Macro Adviser. While some retailers announced plans to import rice, unfamiliarity with imported rice among both consumers and businesses makes it unlikely that such imports will meaningfully alleviate the supply-demand imbalance, he told CNBC. Japan’s inflation rose 3.6% year on year in March. Although the figure was lower than the 3.7% seen in February, it still marked three straight years that the headline inflation figure has remained above the Bank of Japan’s 2% target. “That is very high compared to the U.S. or Europe,” said Shirai, who added that Japan’s inflation picture has more to do with cost pressures that are mostly derived from food prices. “That is why a lot of consumers are very angry,” Shirai said. Additionally, the cheap yen also makes food imports expensive, she noted. Japan imports about 60% of its food supply, according to food sourcing and data hub Tridge. The country also has a food self-sufficiency rate of 38%, compared with the government’s target of 45% by fiscal 2030.

BSE plans to launch 40 new indices in FY26 via Asia Index to tap growing passive investment demand. Focus areas include thematic, factor, and broad market indices. With 20% market share, BSE aims to expand its index portfolio, not compete with NSE, which holds 73% of passive fund AUM. To tap the growing number of passive investors, BSE’s Asia Index plans to launch as many as 40 more indices across sectors this fiscal — double the number in FY25. “At a run rate of 2-3 indices per month, we will launch roughly 40 indices this year,” said Asia Index MD Ashutosh Singh on the sidelines of an event to launch four factor indices – BSE 500 Enhanced Value 50, BSE 500 Low Volatility 50, BSE 500 Momentum 50, and BSE 500 Quality 50. Dinesh Iyer, product head, said that the pipeline of indices would be across categories — thematic, factor and broader market. While some are driven by asset management companies, some are internal, he added. PauseUnmute Fullscreen According to Singh, after 2014, the sudden growth in the passive market was driven by two leapfrog moments — the year when Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) decided to invest its funds into the Nifty and Sensex ETFs and the second came a few years later when the markets regulator came up with the categorisation circular that limited the room for innovation on the active side. In response to these development, exchanges have been aggressively launching indices, both to meet demand from mutual fund houses who will be able increase their assets under management by launching schemes based on them. In addition, it has also become a new line of business for exchanges as they are paid around a percentage point of the assets collected by schemes that use these indices as benchmark. In FY25, BSE and NSE collectively launched 41 indices — over three a month. In comparison, NSE had launched just seven in FY23 and FY24 while BSE hadn’t launched any index, according to its subsidiary Asia Index’s website. Effective June 1 last year, BSE’s holding company had acquired control of Asia Index by acquiring a 50% stake from the joint venture partner S&P and Dow Jones Indices. Singh said, in terms of market share, BSE is way below its peer NSE and is not looking at gaining market share . The aim is to look inwards at BSE’s own product bouquet as there are enough whitespaces to fill. Currently BSE’s market share is roughly 20%, he added. As of March-end 2025, NSE had 73% of the total Industry AUM of the equity and debt passive funds linked to Nifty indices, according to its investor presentation. The exchange earned 1% of its total revenue from index licensing and data licensing services in the quarter ended March. For FY25, the income stood at Rs 121 crore, up 23% compared to last year.

SEBI mandates annual internal audits for all Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs) like stock exchanges, depositories, and clearing corporations. New rules enhance audit committee independence and governance, aiming to bolster transparency and oversight in India's financial markets. With an aim to further strengthen governance at the stock exchanges, depositories and clearing corporations, described as market infrastructure institutions (MIIs), the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Monday revised guidelines for their internal audit mechanism. Effective 90 days from Monday, every MII will be required to conduct an internal audit of all functions and activities at least once in a financial year, and the auditor should be an independent audit firm, a SEBI circular said. The regulator also came out with new rules for the composition of audit committees, barring any executive director (including the managing director) to be a part of these panels. “The auditors of MII and the key management personnel (KMPs) shall have a right to be heard in the meetings of the audit committee when it considers the auditor’s report, but shall not have the right to vote. Wherever required, the KMPs (including the MD) can be invited to attend the meeting of the audit committee with permission of the chairman of the committee,” the circular said. As per the new rules, MIIs should also have a policy for appointment of internal auditors approved by the audit committee. The governing board of the MII and approved auditors will only report to the audit committee. Internal auditors’ observations should be sent to the respective heads of departments for their comments before sharing the final report with the audit committee, the circular said, adding that any observations dropped after clarifications from department heads shall also be included along with the rationale. “The internal auditor of the MII shall appraise the audit committee, at least once in every six months within 60 days from end of September and March on critical issues concerning the MII, in the absence of the management,” it said.

Wall Street is on edge about American investments again after receiving a significant warning about the safest of all safe havens: US debt. Moody’s downgraded America’s debt on Friday evening from its previously perfect AAA credit rating, the last of the three major credit rating agencies to strip US Treasuries of their flawless reputation. Explaining its rationale for lowering its credit rating on the United States for the first time since 1917, Moody’s cited ballooning US debt levels and Washington’s intransigence over budget deficit solutions. US stocks ended the day slightly higher Monday after initially falling: The Dow was up by 137 points, or 0.3%. The broader S&P 500 rose by 0.09% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was 0.02% higher. Investors sold off US Treasuries. The benchmark 10-year yield, which trades in opposite direction to its price, rose near 4.5%, and the 30-year yield was just under 5% after initially crossing that threshold earlier in the day. The US dollar tumbled 0.6% against a basket of currencies. Meanwhile, gold, a traditional safe haven, rose 1.5% to $3,232 a troy ounce. Investors in American assets have been on a roller coaster ride this year. Initial excitement over President Donald Trump’s business-friendly and tax-cut policies sent stocks surging to a record high in mid-February. But that fervor soon gave way to extreme fear over Trump’s trade policy, sending investors pouring out of American assets in what market observers called the “sell America” trade. That sent bonds and the dollar tumbling and stocks an inch away from a bear market in April. In mid-April, however, a pause in trade tensions renewed faith in American investments and sent stocks and bonds surging again. But then came Friday’s debt downgrade. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attempted to reassure market participants that the credit rating downgrade was built on outdated information, echoing the refrain from former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said something similar when Fitch Ratings downgrade America’s debt rating in 2023. Bessent on Sunday told CNN that he “does not put much credence in the Moody’s” downgrade. When pressed by CNN’s Jake Tapper about whether Trump’s “one, big, beautiful bill” tax cut proposal would further exacerbate America’s debt crisis by reducing revenue, Bessent said the bill would grow America’s economy to lower its surging debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio. America’s debt-to-GDP ratio was 92% in the second quarter of 2011 when S&P became the first credit-rating agency to downgrade US debt. It is now 123%, according to the US Treasury. But market analysts say Moody’s downgrade could send shockwaves through Wall Street again. Citigroup in a note to investors Monday said the notch below perfect “makes little if any difference” to investors. “We do think this comes at a bad time for sentiment, with both fiscal space moving in the wrong direction (due to lower tariffs) and the potential fiscal impulse increasing,” Citi analysts said. They also warned this could become America’s “Liz Truss moment” if Washington isn’t careful, cutting taxes to juice the economy at the exact wrong time. Some other analysts concurred. “Budget-busting revenue estimates for the big, beautiful bill down in Washington appear to be the problem,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FwdBonds. “When S&P first tried this US downgrade also late on a Friday, on August 5, 2011, it was quite a shock.” Rupkey noted stocks fell nearly 7% the Monday after America’s first downgrade, but the reaction was far more muted when Fitch downgraded the debt 12 years later. Debt hawks said Moody’s downgrade should serve as a warning about America’s unsustainable debt load. “For those looking for a signpost to tell us when to stop adding to our national debt, they should look no further than Moody‘s downgrade,” said Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peter Peterson Foundation, which advocates for America’s fiscal stability. “It’s unacceptable for a great country like America to harm its own credit rating.” What ‘sell America’ could look like If Wall Street returns to “sell America,” it may not be pretty. In the late winter and early spring, investors took money out of US stocks and even traditional safe havens like government bonds, pouring them into gold and foreign stocks. Treasury yields, which trade in the opposite direction to prices, surged. And spot gold prices rose above $3,000 a troy ounce for the first time in history in March. Traders grew increasingly concerned that Trump’s policies could inflict serious damage on the economy. Despite Trump’s insistence that stocks were falling because of the inflationary problems inherited from former President Joe Biden, the market had boomed after Trump’s November election in hopes that his promised tax cuts and deregulation would fuel another economic boom. But Trump in the months before he took office began threatening massive tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners. The Dow, which was near its record high when Trump started posting messages on Truth Social about tariffs on November 25, hit one more record high a week later and then tumbled. The S&P 500 fell nearly 20% between its mid-February all-time-high and Trump’s April 9 pause of his April 2 “Liberation Day” tariffs. Now, investors have at least one more thing to worry about: America’s out-of-control debt. But they may have to fret about the trade war once again. Bessent on Sunday told CNN that if dozens of countries that had been hit with Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs fail to reach a trade deal with the administration, they’ll face tariffs as high as 50%, the same tariffs Trump unveiled at his “Liberation Day” announcement. “President Trump has put them on notice that if you do not negotiate in good faith, you will ratchet back up to your April 2 level,” Bessent said.

President Donald Trump’s decision to impose a steep tax on most goods that come into America has tested the mettle of small business owners whose companies are reliant on global trade. And the fits and starts that have come along with Trump’s tariff program are not just testing these business owners’ patience, they’re also threatening their very operations. The latest, and perhaps biggest, curveball came last week when the US and China agreed to sharply lower their respective tariff rates for 90 days. The de-escalation brought the US tariffs on Chinese goods down to 30% from 145%. Markets cheered the news, and recession forecasts lessened in intensity. And that surely meant that small business owners who faced steep tariff bills — including Busy Baby founder Beth Fynbo Benike, whose next shipment of baby products was going to come with an additional $230,000 price tag — should be super grateful, right? Fynbo Benike answered that question with some seething sarcasm and a dose of realism. “The tariffs came down. 30%. Yay!” Fynbo Benike said on a TikTok video posted last week. “That still sucks, by the way. That sucks for any small business owner … It’s still going to cost me $48,000 more than this shipment would’ve cost me two months ago.” “It’s still awful,” she said. ‘A slap and a kiss’ The erratic nature of President Donald Trump’s trade policies and the severity of newly imposed tariffs have wreaked havoc on small businesses in the US, causing costs to quickly skyrocket, unsettling longstanding supply chains, swiftly stifling growth and expansion plans — and threatening to kill American-bred businesses. A 30% tariff for Chinese imports “is still a step up, and that’s not the only tariff we’re looking at. We’re looking at tariffs around the globe,” Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, told CNN in an interview. “That relief was necessary, but let’s not kid ourselves. The impact of this trade war is going to be significant, and I think it’s going to hit smaller businesses potentially the worst.” To understand the plight of small businesses one needs to only look at the largest corporation of them all. The chief executive officer of Walmart late last week said that tariffs were “too high” for the world’s largest retailer to absorb, and that it would raise prices in the coming weeks. “Walmart is the best equipped to handle increased costs; they have probably some of the most complex supply chains, and they’re going to multiple suppliers for all of their products,” Renter said. “If some place like Walmart is signaling that they’re going to be increasing prices, we know that the stress on smaller corporations and smaller businesses is going to be significant.” Francine Farkas Sears, who 50 years ago was the first American businesswoman invited to China after President Richard Nixon opened trade relations, told CNN that the tariffs are threatening the viability of her business, which makes professional bags for women as well as accessories for the Girl Scouts of America and the Red Cross. “Well, we might as well just make a lunch date, because I won’t have a business; it’s that serious,” she said. The steep and shifting tariffs are threatening to unwind decades-forged relationships and make her business unsustainable, she said. “It’s an industry that we don’t produce today here,” she said, noting that the costs to produce bags, as well as caps and the roller “cookie carts” for scouts would skyrocket if they weren’t made overseas. “These families are scraping by to join the Girl Scouts for their daughters, and they can buy that cart now for $39,” she said. “If I made it in this country, it would be $200.” “These are areas where we have to realize that we have to shake hands,” she added, noting the volatility could be too much for her and other businesses to withstand. “Whether you like him or not, it doesn’t matter, [Trump is] one of the smartest negotiators ever: He basically throws everyone off balance, and then he brings them back.” “It’s a slap and a kiss,” she said. Pivoting and creating back-up plans Fynbo Benike, a US Army veteran, has long made efforts to manufacture the tethered baby place mats and other accessories on domestic soil; however, the US infrastructure remains costly, limited, or in some cases nonexistent. So, she and others have had to rely on imported goods and materials to grow their businesses. And Busy Baby was indeed growing: The company got its products into several hundred Walmart and Target stores, and Fynbo Benike had just paid for her largest-ever order to help backfill inventory for her website and for Amazon. In recent weeks, Busy Baby was busy pivoting. The company was formulating an international distribution plan, in which the vast majority of the sales would occur outside of the US. The de-escalation of tariff rates with China means that Fynbo Benike can pull the trigger on shipping the order to the US. However, it will come at a steep cost to her and others — most of the funds to pay for the expected $48,000 import tax are coming from a GoFundMe. “Now that the tariff has come down, it’s enough to bridge the gap; so, we’re going to ship the product as soon as possible,” Fynbo Benike told CNN in an interview last week. “And then — this is where it’s very, very risky — we’re going to start production for our next line. I’m going to be hopeful that it’s not going to get worse.” In case it does, she said, she’s modifying production of the baby mats to meet European Union standards. And despite the détente with China, the outlook for companies like Busy Baby has only become increasingly volatile. “I would say it’s more and more (uncertain) and different and stronger,” Fynbo Benike said. “Last time, the tariff was going up and up and up; and now, the tariff all of a sudden dropped significantly. And they say it’s for 90 days, but is it for 90 days?” “Because our administration is known to make sudden and drastic changes out of nowhere, and now that is happening in both directions,” she added. ‘Survival was in question’ Last month was meant to serve as a milestone for Katharine Burke’s Purryfuls business, a startup that made self-care purring plushies for stressed-out Millennials and Gen Zers. After two years in development, the first Purryfuls line was meant to go into production. The month of April, put lightly, “was not fun,” Burke told CNN last week. “My (company’s) survival was in question all of April,” she said via email. “I had my first-, second-, and third-ever panic attacks. I was trying to come up with backup plans as [the tariffs] dramatically changed my outlook for the year.” By the first week of May, the Purryfuls products were being manufactured and scheduled to ship from China at the end of the month. At that time, the tariffs were still 145%, and Burke didn’t know if she’d be in a tight spot, or if she’d be OK. A week later, the tariffs dropped to 30%, a levy that’s significant for small businesses like hers to absorb. But “it’s survivable,” she said. That’s not to say it has been smooth. For one, her customs broker is still poring through the hundreds and thousands of tariff codes to tabulate the exact import duty Purryfuls will have to pay. And then there are new risks of not only higher shipping costs, but also potential delays for her order. “Now that the tariffs have eased, all of the shipments are going out at once which could backup ocean freight and drive up pricing,” she wrote. “I’m hearing from my manufacturer that canceled orders are being revived, which is great for them, but the backlog may mean that there is no space for me to place another order as everyone rushes to get ready for Christmas.”

IDFC First Bank shareholders reject Warburg Pincus arm Currant Sea’s board seat proposal, with only 64.1% support against the required 75%. Institutional investors opposed the move, while retail backed it. Deal may face delays, though capital raise plans and other resolutions were approved. By Mahesh Nayak Shareholders of IDFC First Bank on Monday rejected a proposal to allow Currant Sea Investments BV, an affiliate of Warburg Pincus LLC, nominate a non-executive director on the board. PlayUnmute Fullscreen The special resolution, which required a 75% majority, received 64.10% of votes in favour, falling short of the necessary threshold. The special resolution failed due to opposition from institutional investors, with 51.30% voting against it and 48.7% in favour. In contrast, retail investors showed an overwhelming support, with 98.67% voting in favour. Last month, the IDFC First board had approved a preferential equity issue of about Rs 4,876 crore to Currant Sea Investments. Following that, the bank sought shareholders’ nod through postal ballots to amend its Articles of Association. It sought their approval to provide a right to Currant Sea Investments (or any of its assignees) to nominate one non-retiring, non-executive director by way of a special resolution. Earlier this month, Warburg Pincus, through Currant Sea Investments, had sought the approval of the Competition Commission of India to acquire a 9.99% stake in IDFC First by subscribing to over 812.6 million compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares. Despite Monday’s setback, the deal is not necessarily in jeopardy. The bank can revisit the proposal after addressing shareholder’s concerns and regulatory approvals. “Although the proposal appeared straightforward, its implications could be substantial. For any PE investment transaction of this nature, this would be a very standard and fundamental investor protection right,” said Nazneen Ichhaporia, partner (PE and M&A transactions) at ANB Legal, who feels the rejection of this proposal may influence future negotiations regarding board representation rights and governance arrangements involving private equity stakeholders. “There may be some delay in transaction completion timelines, as the PE would need to answer to its LPs and stakeholders about proceeding without board representation rights.” A banking analyst said on condition of anonymity, “The dissatisfaction is evident. Some investors are unhappy with the bank’s stake dilution and share issuance price.” In October 2023, IDFC First Bank had raised Rs 3,000 crore via a qualified institutional placement issue at Rs 90.25 per share. Now, Warburg Pincus is reinvesting at a discount to the price of sale by its affiliate Cloverdell Investment. Last March, Cloverdell Investment exited IDFC First Bank at Rs 75.24 per share. The bank clearly indicated in its analyst call that capital raising is for the next phase of growth, but the Street is in a dilemma regarding the higher cost-to-income ratio and the quality of the book. The current cost-to-income ratio for IDFC First Bank is around 57%, compared to 42% for Kotak Mahindra Bank and 31% for Federal Bank. The same for Yes Bank and DCB is around 34% and 31%, respectively. Meanwhile, the shareholders approved two other key resolutions – the issuance of convertible cumulative preference shares worth Rs 7,500 crore and the reclassification of authorised share capital – with overwhelming majorities.

The share price of Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) ended Monday’s session in the red, falling 2.3% to close at Rs 244.45. But what is sparking conversation on Dalal Street is not the dip alone but the divergence in the outlook of various brokerages. While some remain bullish on the PSU engineering giant, one brokerage has taken a strong contrarian stance. Kotak Institutional Equities has slapped a ‘sell’ tag on BHEL and sees a drastic 55% downside from current levels, predicting the stock may fall to Rs 115. Kotak calls a caution on BHEL: ‘Sell’ with Rs 115 target The brokerage firm Kotak Institutional Equities has raised eyebrows with its ultra-bearish view. As per the brokerage report, BHEL’s recent Q4 earnings missed expectations, especially after adjusting for certain provisions and a strong industrial print, which may not be sustainable. It pointed to a miss in EBITDA (Earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortization) estimates, even after accounting for one-time reversals and temporary gains in the industrial segment, which may not be sustainable in the long run. The bigger worry, however, lies in the sluggish execution in BHEL’s core power business, an area where the company holds a dominant position. The brokerage also flagged concerns around BHEL’s working capital, saying that while it looked manageable, the underlying situation remains weak. CLSA on BHEL: Softer view, but still not fully bullish Global brokerage CLSA also sounded cautious, albeit less than Kotak. It maintained a ‘reduce’ rating, but increased its price target from Rs 166 to Rs 198. Nuvama on BHEL: Optimistic despite short-term hiccups Contrasting sharply with Kotak outlook, the brokerage firm Nuvama Institutional Equities is still backing the stock, retaining its ‘buy’ call. Although it revised its FY26 earnings estimate down by 43%, it sees long-term potential driven by BHEL’s dominance in India’s thermal power revival. “We reckon Rs 14.1 EPS by FY27E (versus Rs 1.5 as of end-FY25),” the brokerage said in its note, projecting a target price of Rs 360 based on FY27 earnings. According to the brokerage, BHEL’s revenue grew nearly 9% YoY in Q4FY25 to Rs 89.9 billion, while operating margins (OPM) improved to 9.2%. Notably, the industrial segment surged 34% in revenue and achieved a remarkable EBIT margin of 31.3%. JM Financial on BHEL: Bets on thermal boom Another brokerage firm JM Financial is also in the bullish camp, sticking with its ‘buy’ rating and a target price of Rs 281. It sees BHEL as a direct beneficiary of India’s thermal capacity expansion push, which recently increased from 80 GW to 100 GW by FY32. “Execution of legacy projects is nearing completion, and the industry order mix is improving,” noted the brokerage firm, adding that EBITDA margins could climb from 4.4% in FY25 to at least 11% by FY28. The brokerage expects execution to ramp up sharply from FY26 onwards, driven by BHEL’s growing and executable order book, especially as older projects like NTPC’s Patratu and Talcher near closure.

The top executive in charge of CBS News resigned on Monday amid President Trump’s intensifying political pressure against the news operation. Wendy McMahon alluded to a “challenging” past few months in a farewell memo to employees. “It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward,” she wrote. “It’s time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.” While McMahon did not address Trump’s legally dubious lawsuit against CBS in the memo, the suit has been top of mind in recent months. McMahon has publicly stood up for the news division while its parent company, Paramount Global, has sought to settle with Trump while trying to win administration approval for its pending merger with Skydance Media. The clash between editorial principles and corporate priorities has profoundly shaken CBS, one of America’s most distinguished broadcast networks. Last month, “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens, who ran the program that triggered Trump’s ire, said he was stepping down, citing a loss of independence. Owens and McMahon praised each other at the time, signaling a united front against Trump’s legal attacks. Thus, McMahon’s exit — coming one day after the season finale of “60 Minutes,” no less — has employees feeling “like a purge is underway,” as one CBS correspondent told CNN on Monday. The correspondent spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak publicly. McMahon’s departure also stirred speculation that a Paramount settlement with Trump is imminent. The company has not commented. In a memo on Monday morning, Paramount Global co-CEO George Cheeks thanked McMahon for four years of leadership. He said that McMahon’s recently named number two, CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, will now report directly to him. A person with knowledge of the matter pointed out that McMahon’s departure removes a layer of management at a time when Paramount is trying to slim down and spend less. McMahon’s future was also far from certain under Skydance, the company that is trying to take control of CBS and the rest of Paramount. But by stepping down now, and referencing corporate disagreements about the “path forward,” McMahon is highlighting Paramount’s controversial dealings with the president. Trump sued CBS over the editing of last October’s “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. The suit’s allegations that CBS violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a consumer protection law, have been derided by legal experts as frivolous and ridiculous. CBS lawyers defended “60 Minutes” and its editorial judgment on First Amendment grounds. But Trump has blasted the network over and over again, at times even urging the FCC, an agency he has sought to control, to punish CBS by revoking its licenses. With the FCC tasked with reviewing the Paramount-Skydance deal, top executives sought to settle with Trump to make the lawsuit go away. Mediation talks reportedly began at the end of April. The notion of a settlement is anathema to “60 Minutes” employees. The transcript of the Harris interview, which CBS provided to the FCC in February, confirmed what the network said all along: It engaged in normal editing, not any nefarious activity like Trump alleged. Months before resigning, Owens told “60 Minutes” employees that he would not apologize as part of any settlement, since the newsmagazine did not do anything to warrant saying sorry. McMahon also told colleagues that apologizing was a “red line” she would not cross, according to two sources who spoke with her about it. Despite Trump’s attacks, “60 Minutes” continued to broadcast probing reports about his administration all winter and spring long. McMahon acknowledged the viewing audience in her memo Monday, writing, “Thank you for your trust. You hold us accountable, and you remind us why this work matters.” Anna Gomez, one of the Democrats on the Republican-controlled FCC, wrote on X that McMahon’s departure was “beyond alarming.” “Independent journalists are being silenced simply because their reporting may threaten the ambitions of their corporate owners,” Gomez wrote. “It will only embolden an Administration hell-bent on censoring speech and controlling content.”

In 2025, Dan Bongino, FBI deputy director, disappointed the 2023 version of himself. In 2023, Dan Bongino, star podcaster, demanded to know: “What the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?” “I have reviewed the case. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself,” he wrote Sunday in an X post. Bongino was flooded with replies, many of the accusatory variety, from people who refuse to believe him. The backlash to Bongino’s factual statement is part of a broader political phenomenon. Some self-identified loyalists of President Trump are turning against Trump’s top law enforcement officials, partly because of the unsupported MAGA media claims that made those officials popular in the first place. Conspiracy thinking has been a defining trait of the MAGA movement for as long as Trump has been a political candidate. Right-wing media personalities like Bongino, acting as Trump’s top attack dogs, routinely floated unproven theories as a way to malign Trump’s political opponents. But now some of that conspiratorial talk has boomeranged back around. Listeners accustomed to “just asking questions” innuendo aren’t accepting the answers they’re getting. Bongino’s contentious post on X came after he and his boss, FBI director Kash Patel, appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox News show. The choice of platform was telling: Bartiromo is a Trump zealot, her show is a regular promoter of pro-Trump conspiracy theories and is widely trusted by the president’s base. Sunday’s telecast was billed as a long-awaited exclusive interview. Patel and Bongino blamed past FBI leaders for political bias and insisted that they are fixing what Trump fans believe is broken about the agency. “You’re about to see a wave of transparency,” Patel said in response to Bartiromo’s pressure for “accountability” over the FBI’s now-infamous Trump-Russia probe. But the two men also repeatedly tried to tamp down expectations about future revelations. And in a couple of cases they tried to deflate conspiratorial claims that have propped up and united Trump’s base. Numerous MAGA media influencers have argued that the government is covering up information about last year’s Trump assassination attempts, for example. Bongino tried to let those people down easy. When Bartiromo asked about the cases, he let out a sigh, then emphasized that he had personally reviewed all the evidence. “I’m not going to tell people what they want to hear. I’m going to tell you the truth,” he said. “And whether you like it or not is up to you. If there was a big explosive ‘there’ there… we would have told you.” Bongino, who used to host a show on Fox, seemed astutely aware of his audience during the interview. It is an audience that favors Fox’s hyperpartisan opinion shows over hard news coverage; an audience that eagerly shares social media memes about supposed liberal criminality and corruption. “In Bongino’s case, his audience has been told for years that prominent liberals and deep-state operatives have committed blatant crimes against the Trump family that should be easy to prosecute,” Will Sommer of The Bulwark wrote last month. “Yet no top Democrats have been indicted, leading Trump fans to believe Bongino is falling down on the job.” Bongino has repeatedly asked for patience in his social media posts. “Just because you don’t immediately see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening,” he wrote in one such X post last month. Some of his former viewers and listeners are deeply skeptical — of everything that conflicts with their preferred version of reality. Bartiromo alluded to that in the interview when she said to Patel, “You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don’t believe it.” “Listen,” Patel said, “they have a right to their opinion,” but then he joined Bongino in trying to extinguish a conspiracy theory that has raged in right-wing media circles ever since Epstein died in 2019. In his follow-up post on Sunday, Bongino told people, “I’m not asking you to believe me, or not. I’m telling you what exists, and what doesn’t. If new evidence surfaces I’m happy to reevaluate.” Tommy Vietor, who served in the Obama administration and now co-hosts “Pod Save America,” wrote Sunday that it was “fascinating to watch Patel and Bongino transition from feeding the base lies and conspiracy theories to being in positions of actual responsibility and occasionally having to tell the truth.” On topics like the January 6 attack, which stirred many far-right conspiracy theories that attempted to absolve Trump of blame, Patel said, “We’ve got answers coming.” But as Bongino put it, when referring to the assassination attempts, “in some of these cases, the ‘there’ you’re looking for, is not there.”