BACK PAGE | PAGE 20 EXPLAINER | PAGE 9 India'sfirstprivateorbital rockettoliftofftomorrow INTERNATIONAL | PAGE 10 How the new urea policy tackles currency risk NEW DELHI, FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2026 TSMC looks to invest another $100 bn in US FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM READ TO LEAD VOL LII NO. 119, 30 PAGES, `12 (PATNA & RAIPUR `12, SRINAGAR `15) P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K ATA , L U C K N O W, M U M B A I , N E W D E L H I , P U N E SENSEX: 77,186.87 ▲ 1.44 NIFTY: 24,072.75 ▼ 5.75 NIKKEI 225: 66,835.54 ▼ 1,915.97 HANG SENG: 25,008.60 ▲ 327.50 `/$: 96.35 ▼ 0.09 `/€: 110.47 ▼ 0.56 BRENT: $85.31 ▲ $0.36 GOLD: `141,468 ▲ `157 » INSIDE « DON’TOVERRIDE INVESTOR INTERESTS,WRITES SANDEEP PAREKH PAGE 8 NTPC-NPCIL JV invites bids for 2.8 GW plant ANUSHAKTI VIDHYUT NIGAM, the joint venture between NTPC and NPCIL, has invited bids for a `28,000-crore engineering, procurement and construction package for the 2.8-GW Mahi Banswara Nuclear Power Project in Rajasthan, reports Saurav Anand. ■ PAGE 19 ■ Buyback option seeks to help promising firms remain Indianowned THE NUMBER OF newprojects announced plunged to a more thantwo-decadelowintheJune quarter(Q1FY27),reflectingthe uncertainty caused by the West Asiawarandpersistinginvestor wariness in most capital-intensivesectorsotherthandatacentres and nuclearplants. Higheroilpricesanddisruptionstooverseastradeappearto Jun Sep 2024 Dec Mar havepromptedcompanies,particularly those in the government sector, to defer new projects until geopolitical uncertainties ease. Only 663 Jun Sep 2025 Dec 294 369 investments aim to ease funding risks for chip design startups Mar Jun 2026 new projects were announced during the June quarter of the current fiscal, down sharply from 1,275 in the correspondingperiodlastyearand1,172in the January-March quarter, as per data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Continued on Page 10 Mutual funds flexvoting muscle ■ Startups can choose equity co-investment or repay government support via future royalties ment risk while leaving operational control with founders and venture capital firms. Officials said the objective is to unlock private capital for India’s nascent chip design ecosystem by reducing the financing risks associated with deep-tech ventures. Continued on Page 10 ASHLEY COUTINHO Mumbai, July 16 THE SHARE OF mutual fund votes against companyresolutions has seen a steady uptick over the past five years--from 2.5% five years ago to 13.1% for the financial year ended March 2026. This marks the highest share of dissent on record and assumes significance given that funds now own a significant chunk of Indian equities. Interestingly, smaller fund houses are emerging as the mostvocal institutional share- holders, opposing as many as three in every10 companyresolutions.Groww Mutual Fund voted against30.7%of resolutions in the year ended March 2026, followed by Angel One Mutual Fund at 29.7%, Navi Mutual Fund at 28.4% and Zerodha Mutual Fund at 25.5%,according to data from primeinfobase.com. Larger fund houses such as SBI MF, ICICI Prudential MF, Aditya Birla Sun Life MF and Tata MF have a far lower share of such votes (less than 3.3%). Continued on Page 10 SMALL MFs LEAD THE CHARGE Total votes 2021-22 67,281 2022-23 91,042 2023-24 96,042 2024-25 136,806 2025-26 178,339 For Against (%) 92.45 4.97 92.78 7.07 90.79 8.77 87.88 11.94 13.08 86.76 Source: primeinfobase.com New Delhi RESULTS CORNER Wipro profit declines 4.3% WIPRO REPORTED A weakerthan-expected April-June quarter on Thursday, with margin pressure dragging down profit despite stable revenue. Consolidated net profit fell 4.3% sequentially to `3,352 crore, reports Poulomi Chatterjee. PAGE 4 TechM PATup 8.2% in Q1 SAIKAT NEOGI New Delhi, July 16 613 559 ■ Govt Number of new projects announced Private Total Govt 977 1,444 1,114 2,067 1,238 1,276 1,089 1,172 663 4 404 685 THE GOVERNMENT IS set to become a venture-style investor in semiconductor startupsunderIndiaSemiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0, matching investments made by private venture capital (VC) firms. The move is aimed at bridging one of the biggest funding gaps in the country's chip design ecosystem. The framework, which marks a significant departure fromthegrant-basedapproach adoptedunderthefirstphaseof the semiconductor mission, is expected to be notified in the next fewweeks. Under the new co-investment model, semiconductor design startups that successfully develop a proof of concept and secure funding from a privateVC will become eligible for matching government investment. Instead of limiting support to grants and subsidised access to electronic design automation (EDA) software, as was the case under Semicon 1.0, the government will invest alongside private investors on similar commercial terms, sharing the invest- CAPITAL CATALYST pricesforcemany companiesto defercapexplans INVESTORS IN DILEMMA 4 457 819 8 OJASVI GUPTA New Delhi, July 16 ● WestAsiawar,oil 5 570 6 668 SBI FUNDS MANAGEMENT IPO, the biggest public issue of the calendar year, closed on Thursday with an overall subscription of 41.66 times, report Kushan Shah & Kishor Kadam. The `7,150-crore offer received bids worth nearly `3 lakh crore, excluding the pre-IPO placement and anchor investors’ allocation. Centrejoins VCstoinvest inchipfirms 1,028 1 1 1,039 SBI FUNDS IPO ENDS WITH 42X SUBSCRIPTION Numberof newprojects plunges totwo-decadelowinJunequarter 467 647 PAGE 6 662 782 MARKETS EQUITYMODELREPLACES GRANTS 299 678 IN THE NEWS ■ Smaller fund houses emerge as the most vocal institutional shareholders, opposing as many as three in every 10 resolutions TECH MAHINDRA ON Thursday reported an 8.2% sequential rise in first-quarter net profit to `1,465 crore from `1,353.8 crore in the preceding quarter, aided by healthy revenue growth, reports Urvi Malvania.The net profit,however, trailed Bloomberg estimates of `1,583 crore. PAGE 4 UPIabove`2K mayattract 0.5%MDR THE CENTRE MAY reintroduce merchant discount rate (MDR) on UPI transactions of `2,000 and above for large merchants to offset rising operational costs and technology investments of banks and payment service providers, sources said. The levy is likely to be capped at 0.5% of transaction value, while merchants with annual turnover up to `1.5 crore may be exempt, reports Prasanta Sahu. PAGE 2
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