COMPANIES | PAGE 4 ECONOMY | PAGE 2 EVboom powers Ola, profitability still elusive INTERNATIONAL | PAGE 7 Sea route set to boost India’s mango exports AHMEDABAD, SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 2026 Volkswagen CEO aims to cut 100,000 jobs in major overhaul FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM READ TO LEAD VOL NO. XXI 24, 34 PAGES, `12 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 Tenor: 567 Days *T&C Apply WITH TMB'S 567 DAYS DEPOSIT SCHEME 7.75%* www.tmb.bank.in | Toll-free: 180 0425 0426 tmb bank in IN THE NEWS COMPANIES PAGE 4 OPENAIAPPOINTS UBER'S PRABHJEET AS INDIAMD UBER INDIA & South Asia President Prabhjeet Singh will join OpenAI as India Managing Director in September, strengthening the AI firm's India presence. He will report to Asia Pacific Managing Director Kiran Mani. FE Bureau INTERNATIONAL PAGE 7 TRUMPTHREATENS 100%TARIFF OVER DIGITALTAX US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump on Friday threatened to impose a 100% tariff on all goods from any country that imposes a digital services tax on American firms. He said the new tariff would supersede any trade deals. Reuters » INSIDE « HORMUZ SHIPPING STAGES STRONGESTRECOVERYPAGE 2 GOLDMAN SACHS RAISES INDIA’S GDPFORECAST PAGE 2 Reliance Infra case: Sebi rejects Anil Ambani plea THE SECURITIES and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has rejected settlement applications filed by Reliance Infrastructure and its promoter Anil Ambani in a case relating to the company’s exposure of `6,526 crore to engineering contractor CLE Pvt , sources said. PAGE 5 HDFC Bank gets clean chit from legal review FE BUREAU Mumbai, June 26 HDFC BANK ON Fridaysaidan externallegalreviewbytwolaw firms— Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Wadia Ghandy & Co—into concerns raised by former chairman Atanu Chakraborty’s resignationletterfound“nocontemporaneous support”for his allegations in board or committee records, meeting materials or related communications. It paves the way for the process to decide onwhetherto proposeextensionofthetenure ofthebank’sMD&CEOSashidhar Jagdishan whose second termendsinOctober.Jagdishan has indicated in earlier media interviews that he has made himself available for another term if approved bythe board. March 18, 2026 March 19 Atanu Chakraborty resigns as part-time chairman, citing ethical concerns over the bank's practices ■ RBI appoints Keki Mistry interim part-time chairman for three months ■ RBI says it has "no material concerns" over the bank's conduct or governance. TIMELINE External legal firms give clean chit to the bank RBI approves extension of Keki Mistry as part-time chairman of the bank till Sept 18 June 26 June 18 Board appoints external law firms to review Chakraborty's resignation letter March 23 The legal review report is expected to be places before the bank’s audit committee, following which the board will send its choice of candidates to theReserveBankofIndia.Inan exchange filing, the bank said, “No contemporaneous support forMrChakraborty’sstatement wasfoundintheBoardorBoard Committee minutes or materials reviewed,orin contemporaneous communications about the review and approval of the minutes of meetings he attended.” The bank added that witness interviews also did not support or substantiate the claims. It said the review was conducted over a three-month period and involved the review ofthousandsofdocumentsand interviews of the Independent Directors and several members of seniormanagement. Continued on Page 7 PMS client base dips for 3 months in a row KUSHAN SHAH Mumbai, June 26 THE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT services (PMS) industry hasseenitsinvestorbaseshrink forthethirdconsecutivemonth amid heightened market volatilityandsomeprofitbooking,according to data from the Association of Portfolio Managers in India (APMI). Theindustrylost310clients in May, following declines of 1,038 in March and 3,738 in April.As a result,the total client base has fallen from around 217,000toabout212,000over the three-month period. The decline was driven largelybythediscretionaryPMS segment,wherefundmanagers have full authority over investment decisions.Despite the fall inclients,assetsundermanagement (AUM) in discretionary PMS edged up to `36.06 lakh crore in May from `35.45 lakh crore inApril. APMI board member Vikas Khemanisaidthemoderationin client numbers should be viewed as a phase of consolidation rather than a sign of weakening demand for PMS products. “During periods of uncertainty,investors typically takelongertocommitfreshcapital,particularlyindiscretionary investmentproducts,preferring to assess market conditions before making any allocation decisions,” he said. Theslumpwasalsoreflected in flows,with net inflows into discretionary PMS plunging 91%inMay.SandeepJethwani, co-founderofDezerv,attributed thedroptoprofitbookingamid market uncertainty. Continued on Page 7 Byju’s lenders seek 30% inAakash for settlement REUTERS Mumbai, June 26 BYJU’S GLOBAL LENDERS are in talks to take a roughly 30% stake in Aakash Education Services, one of its partly-owned education firms in return for dropping all legal action against the Indian company's founder Byju Raveendran,two sources with direct knowledge said. Byju’s operated in more than 21 countries at one point and became popular during the Covid-19 pandemic by offering online courses. But its fortunes changed in early 2023 when the high-profile dispute with DISPUTE RESOLUTION ■ Global lenders are in talks to take a 30% ■ Lenders agree to drop all claims against founder Byju Raveendran under the proposed deal ■ The talks value Aakash at about $2 billion stake in Aakash its US-based lenders began. US-based Glas Trust, trustee for a group of lenders, accused Raveendran of mismanagement and demanded $1 billion in unpaid loans after Byju’s filed for bankruptcy in India in 2024. Raveendran and Byju’s have denied anywrongdoing.After a meteoric rise from being a teacher to startup billionaire, Raveendran's education-technology company imploded and in 2024 he said, “The company is worth zero.” Continued on Page 7 MarketsmayescapeKospijolt KUSHAN SHAH Mumbai, June 26 SOUTH KOREA’S BENCHMARK index, the Kospi, witnessed a sharp decline on Friday, triggering a 20-minute trading halt—the second such instance this week. Despite the volatility, market experts do not anticipate any significant spillover impact on Indian markets “Indian markets are most likely to remain rangebound. The Nifty is likely to move between 23,800 and 24,600,” said Arun Kejriwal, founder of Kejriwal Research. On IT stocks, he noted that the sector has already seen a TECH TREMORS Sensex Kospi(SouthKorea) Taiex(Taiwan) 250 Relative performance 2 per 199.59 2 200 Base: Dec 31, 2025=100 150 1 153.89 1 100 50 90.47 0 Dec 31, 2025 June 26, 2026 significant correction. While there could be some further downside, the fall is likely to remain limited. Pankaj Pandey, head of research at ICICI Securities, said the broader Indian market may not be impacted significantly, as the IT sector accounts for only around 8% of the index, unlike the Kospi, which is heavily influenced by two major stocks—Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. These stocks fell 6.12% and 8.40%,respectively,on Friday. Continued on Page 7 DirectIndia-Chinaflight capacitysurges30-fold NITIN KUMAR New Delhi, June 26 AIRBORNE AGAIN LESS THAN A year after India and China restored direct passenger flights following a nearly six-year suspension, scheduled seat capacity between the two countries has increased more than 30-fold, underscoring a rapid recovery in one of Asia’s most significant business travel markets. According to aviation analyticscompanyOAG,directoutbound seat capacity rose from just1,116seatsacrosssixscheduled flights in October 2025, when services resumed, to a peakof35,019seatsacross164 flights in May 2026. Airlines scheduled 27,857 outbound seats on 137 flights in June. India–China direct flights since services resumed in October 2025 2025 DEPOSIT SCHEME MORE RETURNS. MORE REASONS TO SMILE. FORMER CHAIRMAN DID NOTPARTICIPATE INTHE PROCESS 2026 Tamilnad Mercantile Bank October November December January February March April May June Scheduled flights 6 61 75 92 96 113 145 164 137 Total seats 1,116 12,116 16,377 20,848 22,160 25,884 30,361 35,019 27,857 Source: OAG Continued on Page 7 In this occasional series, we explore how global firms are transforming their India-based global capability centres into hubs of cutting-edge technology HowDeutscheBank’sIndia GCCbecameMissionControl POULOMI CHATTERJEE Bengaluru, June 26 EVERY TRADE EXECUTED by Deutsche Bank’s investment banking business anywhere in theworldgeneratesaconfirmation—a legally binding documentexchangedbetweencounterparties. Until recently, producing those confirmations involvedmultiplesystems,product-specificworkflowsandconsiderablemanualintervention. Today, a single platform performs that task across asset classes. It was conceived, built and is run out of Bengaluru. The platform is more than anotherautomation project.It captures the transformation underway inside global capability centres (GCCs) in India. Whatbeganasback-officesupport operations have steadily evolved into engineering hubs TECH REWIRING ■ The bank has built a Bengaluru-based platform unifying global trade confirmations across asset classes ■ The system replaces fragmented workflows with a single automated-led solution ■ India is now the bank’s largest technology hub, with 9,000 staff across key cities ■ Bengaluru campus expanded by 100,000 sq ft, hosting over 6,000 engineers ■ AI tools from India power KYC, onboarding, risk and document intelligence systems designing systems that sit at the heart of multinational businesses. For Deutsche Bank, India has become precisely that. At its Bengaluru campus in Electronic City, the bank recently addedanother100,000sqftof engineering space, taking the workforce there to more than 6,000.AcrossBengaluru,Pune, Jaipurand Mumbai,it employs around 9,000 people. “India is the bank’s largest technologyhub,with a significant concentration of engineering talent contributing to core platforms,AI and transfor- mation initiatives,” said Gurumurthy Thiagarajan, head of IndiatechnologycenterandCIO for people, procurement and legal,atDeutscheBank’sannual Bank onTech event. The numbers tell their own story. Of the bank's more than 20,000 employees in technology, data & innovation worldwide, over half work across its technology centres in India, Europe and the US,with India emerging as the largest engineering base. Increasingly,that engineeringeffortiscentredonartificial intelligence.Oneoftheflagship platforms developed in Bengaluru is dbTextract, an AI engine that reads vast volumes ofunstructureddocumentsand convertsthemintousableinformation foronboarding. Continued on Page 7 Ahmedabad