MUMBAI: Four early investors in Billionbrains Garage Ventures that operates the leading fintech platform Groww, are together selling 4.3% stake worth about $500 million (close to Rs 4,800 crore) in the recently-listed company. Peak XV, Sequoia, Y Combinator and Ribbit, the selling shareholders, have mandated Kotak Securities and JP Morgan India to sell the shares through block deals on Tuesday.The four selling shareholders, all private equity majors, are together selling a little over 26.8 crore shares of Groww, translating to 4.3% of the fintech major’s equity capital, the term sheet for the deal showed.The floor price for the offer, at Rs 177 per share, is at 8.5% discount to Groww’s closing price of Rs 193.5 on NSE on Monday. The base offer size is for 4.3% of the total equity capital of Groww, valued at Rs 4,750 crore at the floor price. There is an upsize option for further sale through this deal, the term sheet said.According to a report by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research, for those shareholders who held shares in the company before it went public, lock-in of shares is set to end on May 12. The total number of Groww shares from which lock-in would be lifted is 418.2 crore. At current prices, that is worth nearly Rs 81,000 crore.According to Sebi rules, aimed at limiting any pressure on the stock price from over-supply of shares of a recently listed company, there’s lock-in for shareholders who had invested in the company before the IPO.Among the other prominent, recently-listed companies in which lock-in for pre-IPO shareholders is ending soon are Meesho (308.3 crore shares on June 10), Pine Labs (92.4 crore shares on May 13) and Physicwallah (25.9 crore shares on May 18).

BENGALURU: LTM (formerly LTIMindtree) increased fresher hiring by 40% in FY26 and expanded the deployment of AI agents across its workforce. At the same time, the company relied more on subcontractors in overseas markets and adopted a calibrated salary hike strategy amid macroeconomic uncertainty The IT firm onboarded more than 6,700 freshers during 2025-26, strengthening its talent pipeline across key capabilities. It also deployed over 1,500 AI agents internally to improve employee productivity and operational efficiency at scale.Subcontracting expenses, meanwhile, rose sharply to Rs 3,236.9 crore in FY26 from Rs 2,631.2 crore a year earlier. The increase was driven by a higher subcontractor headcount and rising overseas subcontracting costs due to rupee depreciation. The company’s workforce mix reflected changing onsite hiring trends. In the US, full-time employee count declined marginally to 7,454 in FY26 from 7,517 a year earlier, while subcontractor numbers rose to 1,324 from 952. In Europe, employee headcount dropped to 1,381 from 1,735, whereas subcontractors increased to 290 from 227.In India, both permanent employee and subcontractor numbers increased during the year. Employee headcount rose to 77,855 from 73,801 in FY25, while subcontractors increased to 2,650 from 2,097. Overall, the company’s total permanent employees, excluding subsidiaries, stood at 87,950 as of March 31, compared with 84,307 a year earlier.

MUMBAI: Indians’ love for gold is ever shining but the steep prices of the yellow metal over the past several quarters have nudged consumers to find ways to ease burden on their pockets while keeping the heft and appeal of jewellery intact. For instance, consumers are buying less of new gold but instead recycling or exchanging the gold stored in their households for new gold to save on some money. Every time you give your old jewellery to a gold retailer, it gets recycled, which means you are reusing gold that you already have and using its value to buy something new, in effect reducing the burden of imports. India’s gold imports increased in value from $58 billion in FY25 to $72 billion in FY26, govt data showed. At P.N. Gadgil & Sons, the proportion of gold exchange and recycling, which stood at nearly 25-30% up to FY25, has significantly increased to around 50-60% in recent quarters, said COO & CFO Aditya Modak, adding that in such cases, old gold is usually taken at credit for purchase and the remaining is settled in cash. The volume of new gold purchases has seen a 30% decline in gram terms over recent quarters, said Modak. “This shift indicates that rising gold prices and ongoing volatility have prompted consumers to increasingly opt for recycling and upcycling existing gold jewellery instead of purchasing entirely new pieces,” said Modak. Tata’s Titan, which has been pushing exchanges through its brand Tanishq, said that exchange programmes helped record a 35% growth in each of gold and studded products portfolios alongside new collections. “Over 30 lakh Indians have partaken of Tanishq’s gold exchange programmes for years, recycling close to 1.7 lakh kg of gold,” the brand had said in a note last year, explaining that recycling is not a new strategy adopted by consumers. However, in recent times, that share has only grown, driven by volatile gold prices. “Industry wide, there has been a significant increase in gold recycling,” said Saumen Bhaumik, MD at Tata’s CaratLane for which gold exchanges shot up by 15-20% than usual in the March quarter. Industry executives expect consumers to tweak their buying patterns on PM’s call to avoid non-essential purchases of gold for a year. Bhaumik, estimates people to move to lower gold caratages and opt for silver and light diamond jewellery for regular usage. “The brand might have to revise its medium to long-term forecast after assessing the impact over next few weeks,” said Modak.For BlueStone Jewellery, exchanges have doubled year-on-year, with the brand offering more benefits to consumers going for exchanges so that they can get higher value, said founder & CEO Gaurav Singh Kushwaha. Many consumers are now looking at old jewellery not as something to simply store away but as an asset that can be redesigned into something more contemporary and wearable, said Ankur Daga, co-founder at Angara.