RELIANCE

NEW DELHI, May 25 (Reuters) - India's Reliance Industries RELI.NS, operator of the world's biggest refining complex, imported about 217,800 barrels per day (bpd) of Russian oil in April, down 37.9% from the month before, according to ship tracking data obtained from industry sources.

In April, Reliance also imported Iranian oil after a gap of seven years following a temporary waiver granted by Washington to help stabilise global oil prices.

Russian oil accounted for about 16.7% of Reliance's overall crude imports in April, down from 26.3% in the previous month, the data showed.

Reliance's overall monthly imports declined about 2.2% to 1.3 million bpd, the data showed, ahead of maintenance shutdown of units at one of its refineries.

NOTE: The total may not tally as numbers in tonnes have been rounded after converting them into barrels per day using a conversion factor of 7.2 barrels per tonne, to reflect the higher density crude the company buys, divided by the number of days.

Numbers for previous months have been revised.

Data also includes some crude parcels that arrived in April, but discharged in May. It also includes some parcels that arrived in March and were discharged in April.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

(([email protected]; X: @nidhi712;))

May 21 (Reuters) -

• CAPITAL GROUP BUILDS $2 BILLION ADANI BET IN PIVOT FROM RELIANCE - BLOOMBERG NEWS

Source text: https://tinyurl.com/ynsdr6a9

Further company coverage: ADEL.NS

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May 20 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL ANNOUNCED A PARTNERSHIP WITH RISE WORLDWIDE

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - PARTNERSHIP TO SUPPORT GROWTH OF BASEBALL IN INDIA

Source text: ID:nBSE5WlthD

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

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By Ira Dugal

May 19 - India’s IPO queue is lengthening as market heavyweights hold back plans, waiting for geopolitical tensions to ease and for foreign inflows to pick up.

Reliance’s Jio and the National Stock Exchange are among the listing hopefuls banking on a turn in investor sentiment in the months ahead. But there may be a silver lining in the IPO slowdown for both investors and the broader economy. Is it a warning sign, or a much-needed reality check? That's our focus this week. Share your views with me at [email protected].

And, billionaire Gautam Adani's conglomerate sees a key regulatory overhang lift. Scroll down for more on that.

THIS WEEK IN ASIA

• Trump's geopolitical brinkmanship has hit a wall with Iran

• Iran, Ukraine wars deliver worst hit in years to oil refining output

• Carry on trading: rate-based G10 currency bets make a comeback

• US clears H200 chip sales to 10 China firms as Nvidia CEO looks for breakthrough

• China's economy loses steam at start of Q2 as consumption, output disappoint in April

COURSE CORRECTION

India’s IPO boom is waning.

After two consecutive years in which companies raised more than 2 trillion rupees ($20.78 billion) annually, deal flow has slowed sharply as weaker markets and sliding valuations prompt issuers to wait.

Big-ticket listings expected in the first half of the year have been pushed back, with billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms now more likely to list later in 2026. Walmart-backed PhonePe has also delayed plans, while the National Stock Exchange is expected to come to market in the coming months.

Just four IPOs were launched in April, raising a modest 11.71 billion rupees, a fraction of the levels seen over the past two years.

While the pause reflects a more challenging market backdrop, it may also bring some benefits.

A cooling of initial public offerings could ease foreign exchange outflows that had risen alongside large exits by private equity investors and other early backers. It may alleviate some pressure on the rupee and also restore pricing discipline after a period marked by aggressive valuations and heavy secondary-market selling.

Jio, for instance, has shifted from a predominantly offer-for-sale (OFS) structure for its IPO to one involving a fresh issue of shares, signalling existing investors will hold on for longer and perhaps more moderate valuations, as Reuters Breakingviews columnist Shritama Bose wrote.

Offers for sale accounted for 59% of total funds raised in the last financial year and 67% the year before, according to a KPMG study.

Such selling, cited by the central bank, contributed to relatively weak net foreign direct investment (FDI) of just over $6 billion in April to February last fiscal year, despite gross inflows of $88.3 billion.

"A shift away from OFS towards fresh fundraising will be beneficial for the market and all classes of investors because it will help IPOs come to market at more reasonable valuations," said Arun Kejriwal, founder of Kejriwal Research and Investment Services.

"When you are raising fresh money, the valuation focus is a little diluted. When you or large investors are selling their own shares, you are more focused on maximising returns," he said.

Block deals by large shareholders that had surged last year, adding to secondary-market supply and weighing on prices, have also eased in recent months.

PRICING DISCIPLINE

The market correction is likely to make investors more selective.

More than half of the IPOs launched in 2025 are now trading below their issue prices, forcing companies to recalibrate expectations on pricing and size.

Amid the global volatility impacting equity markets, pricing discipline will now play a more central role in the IPO market, KPMG said.

India's IPO pipeline, nevertheless, remains strong.

At the start of the financial year in April, 143 companies had approval to raise a combined 1.745 trillion rupees through IPOs, according to Prime Database.

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India has extended the validity of such approvals and allowed greater flexibility on issue size, giving companies room to wait for improved conditions.

For a well-priced issue, this would be a good time to come to market given that IPOs have dried up over the past four months, Kejriwal said.

He pointed to a June 2003 public offering by Maruti Suzuki India, where the automaker offered shares at a discount in the midst of a market slump, helping revive broader sentiment.

More than two decades later, will Jio's change of heart have a similar effect?

MARKET MATTERS

A surge in global bond yields is becoming yet another factor putting pressure on the rupee and capital flows into India.

The rupee fell to a record low of 96.38 versus the dollar on Monday and India's benchmark 10-year bond yield rose to 7.13%, a 10-week high.

A study by JPMorgan found that short-term and even longer-term FDI flows are strongly correlated with the U.S. 10-year yield.

"The rapid drop-off in India’s FDI since 2023 has coincided with central banks hiking rates from 2022 and global financial conditions tightening sharply," JPMorgan economist Sajjid Chinoy wrote in a report dated May 16.

Catch up on India's dollar deficit in the previous edition of the India File.

THIS WEEK'S MUST-READ

Adani group companies are in focus after the Trump administration moved to dismiss criminal fraud charges against billionaire Gautam Adani, while also settling alleged Iran sanctions violations involving one of his companies. The conglomerate has proposed to invest $10 billion in the U.S.

A civil fraud lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission related to an alleged scheme to bribe Indian government officials was also resolved.

The Adani Group has consistently denied wrongdoing.

The likely resolution of the two cases eases the regulatory risk surrounding the group, Reuters Breakingviews columnist Una Galani wrote last week. Read here.

Indian regulators are yet to close or rule on at least nine allegations that Adani Group and its offshore funds broke securities regulations.

($1 = 96.2575 Indian rupees)

​

(Reporting by Ira Dugal; Additional reporting by Jaspreet Kalra; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil

DELHI, May 18 (Reuters) - FIFA media rights officials are visiting India this week, three sources said, ahead of next month's World Cup for which soccer's ruling body has not struck a broadcast deal with India due to differences over pricing.

Millions of soccer fans in India risk not being able to watch the tournament due to a deadlock over broadcast rights. China Media Group, the parent of China's state broadcaster, agreed a World Cup broadcasting deal last week to end a standoff over TV rights there.

The three sources familiar with FIFA's plans said the media rights executives are in India, though details of who they are meeting and the exact agenda were not clear.

In a statement to Reuters, FIFA said it concluded agreements with broadcasters in over 180 territories and discussions in India regarding the sale of media rights were ongoing and "must remain confidential at this stage".

Discussions between the Reliance-Disney joint venture, India's biggest media company and FIFA have not materialised, and Sony, another big player, has refrained from bidding, Reuters has previously reported.

Reliance-Disney joint venture offered $20 million for the FIFA rights. That led to a disagreement because FIFA had initially sought $100 million but was last looking for around $60 million at least, Reuters has reported.

It is not clear if FIFA is meeting with Reliance-Disney joint venture. The venture, led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani's ​Reliance RELI.NS, declined to comment.

The World Cup kicks off on June 11, leaving only three weeks for a deal to be finalised, broadcast infrastructure to ​be set up and advertising inventory to be sold.

With about 85 million fans, soccer is popular in India but lags behind cricket which has 492 million fans, according to a 2024 report from Deloitte and Google.

India accounted for 2.9% of the global linear TV reach at the 2022 World Cup.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil, editing by Ed Osmond)

((Email: [email protected]; X: @adityakalra;))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Una Galani

HONG KONG, May 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) - If U.S. authorities end actions against Gautam Adani, outsized regulatory concerns around the Indian tycoon's $150 billion eponymous energy and infrastructure empire will ease. Political ones will remain, but the battle-hardened group is in a better position to ride out whatever crisis comes next. If nothing else, that's a win for India.

A flurry of developments suggests the billionaire will soon draw a line under his problems stateside. On Thursday, court filings showed he agreed to settle a case with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging he made false or misleading statements in connection with a $750 million Adani Green ADNA.NS bond offering. And the Justice Department, per source-based reporting by multiple news outlets, looks set to drop fraud charges in a parallel criminal case over an alleged scheme to pay over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials so his company could win approval to develop India's largest solar power plant.

It all comes at a cost. Besides the total fines that could amount to $300 million, per Reuters reporting citing unnamed sources, Adani is on the hook to invest $10 billion in the U.S. economy, equivalent to as much as two-thirds of the group's promised annual capital expenditure over the next five years. His lawyer, Robert Giuffra, also a personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, told the Justice Department the group couldn't make the pledged investment while the case was proceeding.

The Adani empire's worth has also taken a battering: the market value of the flagship airports-to-datacentre incubator, Adani Enterprises ADEL.NS, is 73% of what it was in early 2023 before it was targeted by short-seller Hindenburg Research, prior to the U.S. issues arising. Adani Total Gas ADAG.NS, Adani Green and Adani Energy Solutions ADAI.NS are also worth less. Yet if the U.S. actions do end, the Indian conglomerate will emerge stronger from the successive crises.

The tycoon's companies now trade on less outrageously eye-watering valuations. India's securities regulator has effectively cleared Adani of the stock manipulation charges levelled by Hindenburg. Adani has unwound pledged shares. Such concerns held back institutional investors from investing in the group. Drawing a line under the U.S. accusations means Adani's empire could now welcome more high-quality shareholders onto its registers; it would also loosen a fundraising straitjacket worn by the group over the past three years. Adani company shares were not very big movers at the open on Friday as the settlements were expected. Yet once they are fully in hand, the group will find it easier and cheaper to raise capital and refinance its $29 billion of net debt.

The group will have to live with the perceived political risk stemming from its rapid rise under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Investors are less jittery about the success of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries RELI.NS and the Tata group because those other too-big-to-fail Indian conglomerates have thrived over many more decades and political transitions. Whenever that test arises, though, the toughened-up Adani group will be better placed to face it.

Follow Una Galani on Linkedin and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar agreed to pay a total of $18 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that they made false or misleading statements in offering materials in connection with a $750 million Adani Green bond offering, court filings dated May 14 showed.

The Justice Department is also moving to drop fraud charges against Adani in a parallel criminal case, Bloomberg reported earlier on the same day.

The proposed SEC settlement, in which neither defendant admits to or denies the allegations, requires the approval of a district court. The original SEC complaint was filed in November 2024.

Adani's lawyer, Robert Giuffra, who is also a personal attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, told Justice Department officials in a presentation last month that the group could not make a pledged $10 billion investment in the U.S. economy while the case was proceeding, Reuters reported citing an unnamed source.

In November 2024, federal prosecutors charged Adani and six other executives over an alleged scheme to pay over $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials so his company could win approval to develop India's largest solar power plant.

Separately, the Adani group is in talks to pay potentially $265 million to settle an investigation by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control involving shipping Iranian gas, the New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the matter.

(Editing by Antony Currie; Production by Ujjaini Dutta)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on GALANI/ [email protected]))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, May 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Jio Platforms owns a data network boasting India's quickest downloads, but its investors aren't feeling the benefits of speed. The telecom and digital unit of tycoon Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries RELI.NS will only sell new shares in an initial public offering, the Economic Times reported on Monday, citing unnamed people involved in the process. KKR KKR.N, Meta Platforms META.O and other existing investors may be holding on to their stakes in the hope of higher returns, but the delay will come at a cost.

The offering is a departure from an earlier plan: shareholders, among them Vista Equity Partners, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, were to sell 8% of their stakes in the IPO, per a Reuters report from March citing unnamed sources.

Now these global investors, who own 33% of Jio, will be waiting even longer to exit their position. The change may have been prompted by Reliance's keenness to prioritise leaving value on the table for mom-and-pop investors who subscribe to the IPO. It means the company is unlikely to aim for a more ambitious valuation of up to $180 billion estimated by analysts.

Assuming a price tag of $140 billion, roughly 13.4 trillion rupees, for Jio would imply an annualised return in local currency terms of roughly 18% over its 2020 equity valuation of 4.9 trillion rupees, and less in U.S. dollar terms. Anything below 20% would be considered sub-optimal for private equity backers like KKR, Silver Lake and General Atlantic.

It may be reasonable for them to stick around for longer to maximise gains from rising earnings in a business that's growing the top line at nearly 15%, twice the pace of the country's GDP. Its net income is likely to expand too, by 25% for the year to March 2027, according to estimates compiled by Visible Alpha.

Pricing dynamics may also turn more favourable once fighting in the Middle East ceases to weigh on Indian equities. Selling the minimum mandated 2.5% stake in a company valued at $140 billion would send Jio's bankers including Kotak and Morgan Stanley in search of buyers for $3.5 billion of stock, ranking amongst the biggest-ever Indian IPOs, at a time global sentiment towards the emerging market is exceptionally weak.

Yet waiting would mean passing up a chance to reduce an overhang on Jio's shares created by the expectation that its financial investors will eventually look for buyers. Ambani appears determined to avoid any further delays to listing the business. For Jio's current backers, the bar for a meaningful payoff is rising.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

CONTEXT NEWS

Reliance Industries is reworking the listing structure for its telecom and digital unit Jio Platforms, the Economic Times reported on May 11, citing three unnamed people involved in the process. The Indian group is now working towards an initial public offering only of new shares in Jio, as opposed to the previous plan of existing investors selling some of their stakes. A disagreement over pricing drove the change, the report added.

(Editing by Una Galani and Antony Currie; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on BOSE/[email protected]))

Updates to add context, source comments in paragraph 3-14

By Aditya Kalra and Vibhuti Sharma

MUMBAI, May 11 (Reuters) - Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Platforms has shifted its planned Mumbai IPO to a pure fundraising exercise, abandoning earlier plans that would have allowed major foreign investors to sell some of their shares, two sources said on Monday.

​Jio Platforms, which owns the world's second-largest telecom company by users after China Mobile 600941.SS, counts Meta META.O, Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google and Vista Equity Partners among its investors. Its initial public offering has been long-awaited and could be India's largest ever.

The firm earlier held discussions with its foreign investors for each to sell 8% of their individual holdings in the IPO, totalling 2.5% of the company, Reuters reported previously. That would have allowed new investors to come in and let foreign investors sell some of their holdings without any fresh fundraising in a process called an offer-for-sale in India.

That plan has been dropped, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. They requested anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Reliance now plans to raise fresh funds totalling 2.5% of the company's size. "Investors were not keen to sell and wanted to stay invested for the long term," one of the sources said.

The Economic Times was first to report on the company's plans to pivot to a fresh fundraising with the offering on Monday.

Jio Platforms did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

WAR OVERHANG

The filing for the Jio Platforms IPO, which was expected as early as March, was pushed back following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, with investors losing appetite for new listings.

In March, Walmart-backed WMT.O Indian fintech firm PhonePe paused plans for an IPO, citing geopolitical ​tensions and volatility in global capital markets.

The Iran war is certainly an "overhang," said the first source, speaking about Jio Platform's delayed IPO filing.

Jio Platforms' listing is a key plank of Ambani's long-term vision to transform Reliance from an oil-and-chemicals giant into an "everything company" spanning consumer, retail and technology.

In 2020, Jio raised funds from major global investors who were betting on India's rapidly expanding digital economy where smartphone penetration is accelerating, internet costs are among the lowest in the world and a young, mobile-first population is coming online.

In November, investment bank Jefferies estimated Reliance Jio's valuation would be $180 billion. Sources told Reuters in January that the IPO could be worth as much as $4 billion, though final numbers would be decided later.

Reliance Jio Platforms has hired 17 banks to manage its Mumbai listing.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Vibhuti Sharma; Editing by Sonali Paul and Thomas Derpinghaus)

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May 7 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• RELIANCE INDUSTRIES - WILL NOT BE ACQUIRING ANY STAKE IN OF KANDLA GHA TRANSMISSION LIMITED

Source text: ID:nBSE4PBC5r

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

(([email protected];))

** Reliance Industries RELI.NS shares down 2.3% at 1,430 rupees; benchmark Nifty 50 .NSEI nearly flat

** RELI on course to snap six-session winning streak - longest in more than 7 months

** Reuters could not immediately ascertain reason behind the day's move

** RELI rallied about 10% till Tuesday since reporting its Q4 results post-market close on April 24

** Post earnings, analysts said conglomerate's refining business will benefit from stronger fuel margins, and remain positive on RELI's growth

** Avg rating of 29 analysts is "buy", median PT is 1,690 rupees - data compiled by LSEG

** YTD, RELI down about 9%, Nifty 50 fell about 8%

(Reporting by Anuran Sadhu in Bengaluru)

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By Abhijith Ganapavaram

NEW DELHI, May 5 (Reuters) - India's biggest listed company, Reliance Industries RELI.NS, has handed over documents demanded by federal police investigating a drone import bribery case involving one of its senior vice presidents, according to a court order.

The order by a New Delhi court issued on Monday night did not specify what documents were demanded by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The CBI arrested a Reliance senior vice president, Bharat ⁠Mathur, and an official from the country's ‌aviation regulator last month, accusing them of agreeing to a $16,000 bribe to ​clear drone import applications by Asteria Aerospace, a Reliance unit.

The court also granted bail to Mathur, 64, on a personal bond of 100,000 rupees ($1,050). Both he and the government official, who is still in custody, have denied the allegations.

Reliance, which is led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and Asteria did not respond to Reuters queries. The CBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The investigation and arrest of the senior Reliance executive come as Ambani's Jio Platforms, which owns Asteria, is gearing to file papers seeking regulatory ​approvals for a Mumbai listing, ​in what is likely ⁠to be India's biggest-ever stock offering.

Reliance has previously said Mathur ​was engaged as ​a consultant ⁠and the company neither knew of nor approved "any such unauthorised transaction."

Asteria Aerospace describes itself as a drone technology ​company that provides "actionable intelligence from aerial data". It provides services to agriculture, construction, telecom, and oil and gas sectors through the more than 400 drones it has deployed.

The CBI investigators have also questioned co-founders of Asteria Aerospace as part of the probe, the order said. The company was started in 2011 and Reliance bought it in a $2.45 million deal in 2019.

(Reporting by Abhijith Ganapavaram; editing by Aditya Kalra and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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May 4 (Reuters) -

• FIFA HAS CONCLUDED AGREEMENTS WITH BROADCASTERS IN OVER 175 TERRITORIES AROUND THE WORLD AHEAD OF FIFA WORLD CUP - FIFA SPOKESPERSON

• DISCUSSIONS IN CHINA AND INDIA REGARDING SALE OF MEDIA RIGHTS FOR FIFA WORLD CUP 2026 ONGOING AND MUST REMAIN CONFIDENTIAL AT THIS STAGE - FIFA SPOKESPERSON

Further company coverage: DIS.N

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Adds data on destinations, details from paragraph 6 onwards

By Marianna Parraga and Mircely Guanipa

May 1 (Reuters) - Venezuela's oil exports rose 14% to 1.23 million barrels per day in April, the highest in more than seven years, fueled by more sales to the United States, India and Europe, shipping data and documents from state company PDVSA showed on Friday.

The South American country has been draining oil inventories and recovering crude output in recent months following the U.S. capture of President Nicolas Maduro in January, which led to a flagship supply pact between the governments of U.S. President Donald Trump and Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez.

The agreement, coupled with U.S. licenses easing sanctions on the country this year, has allowed PDVSA's joint-venture partners and trading houses including Vitol and Trafigura to receive cargoes from the state firm for sales to refiners in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

In April, a total of 66 vessels departed from Venezuelan waters, compared with 61 ships that carried 1.08 million bpd of crude and refined products in March, according to the data, based on tanker movements.

The April average is the highest monthly volume since late 2018, before U.S. sanctions were imposed on Venezuela's energy industry.

ALL OVER THE WORLD

The main destination of Venezuela's oil last month was the U.S. with some 445,000 bpd directly exported, above the 363,000 bpd of March. Exports to India rose to 374,000 bpd from 342,000 bpd the previous month, while shipments to Europe increased to some 165,000 bpd from 144,000 bpd.

Some 187,000 bpd of Venezuelan crude and fuel went to storage terminals in the Caribbean for further sales.

The trading firms carried about 56% of total exports or 691,000 bpd, while U.S. company Chevron CVX.N was responsible for 25% or 308,000 bpd, an increase from 267,000 bpd in March.

Indian refiner Reliance Industries RELI.NS received a large crude cargo directly from PDVSA and bought several from the traders last month, the data showed.

Under the supply pact, Venezuela's oil exports have gained diversity while reaching more customers over recent months, a shift from limitations imposed by previous sanctions. The U.S. continues controlling the OPEC country's sale proceeds through Treasury Department-supervised accounts.

Sales to Reliance are set to continue growing this month, with at least three supertankers chartered by the Indian firm waiting to load at Venezuela's ports, according to LSEG ship monitoring data.

Venezuela also exported 360,000 metric tons of oil byproducts and petrochemicals in April, slightly below the 382,000 tons of the previous month; and imported some 141,000 bpd of naphtha versus 155,000 bpd in March.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga and Mircely Guanipa. Editing by Nathan Crooks, Mark Potter and Andrea Ricci )

(([email protected]; +1 713 371 7559; Reuters Messaging: @mariannaparraga))

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Shritama Bose

MUMBAI, April 30 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The jobs crisis stirring in India’s vast outsourcing industry spells trouble for the country’s $4 trillion consumption-led economy. With the gap between household income and spending already widening, the consequences of the churn on finance and markets will be far-reaching.

White collar jobs are starting to disappear in the world’s services capital where many global firms employ thousands of staff in global capability centres that are responsible for everything from back-office functions to fraud detection to critical research and development.

Following the launch of artificial intelligence tools by Anthropic and others that allow companies do the same amount of work with fewer people, Oracle ORCL.N laid off 10,000 workers, or one-fifth of its India workforce in March, and Amazon.com AMZN.O let go of 500 people in the country in January, the Economic Times reported, citing sources. It looks like just the beginning of the headcount reductions.

One executive of a global bank told Reuters Breakingviews their workforce in India could shrink by one-third. This could happen quickly within just one or two years because of the double digit attrition rates at offices of global firms in cities including Bengaluru, Gurugram and Pune. JPMorgan Chase JPM.N has a whopping 55,000 employees in the country, which equals about one-fifth of its total workforce and includes one-third of all its technologists; HSBC’s HSBA.L 47,000 local employees make up 23% of its global headcount.

Then there is also “AI deflation” – the term Indian IT firms that typically lap up fresh graduates use to refer to slowing revenue growth. Annual revenue in U.S. dollar terms at industry leader Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS shrunk for the year ended March 2026, marking the first decline since the $97 billion company's initial public offering ​in 2004.

Altogether, global capability centres and the IT sector employ up to 15 million people who anchor India’s middle class and whose jobs are under threat from generative AI, Bernstein analysts Venugopal Garre and Nikhil Arela said last week in an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Though this is a small fraction of India’s 616-million-strong workforce comprised mostly of swathes of informal and agricultural workers, the AI vulnerable cohort represents a sizeable chunk of the employed within the rising middle class. With fewer jobs, there will also be pressure on salaries for those who keep theirs.

For India, advances in generative AI are intensifying the intractable challenge of creating enough jobs in a country that skipped over the traditional manufacturing route and where 8 million people enter the workforce each year. Modi's push to drive manufacturing isn’t softening the blow much either, thanks to factory automation.

There are already signs that India’s world-beating 7.8% growth is decoupling from employment generation: New Delhi’s latest Economic Survey notes that since 2022 – the same year that OpenAI launched ChatGPT -- the labour intensity of output has marginally declined. That rupture will deepen unless workers upskill, the survey says, with the change coming “not in a single shock, but in a quiet, steady drift”.

This threatens a blow to spending on what people want, rather than what they need. Private consumption accounts for about 60% of GDP and the top 140 million Indians who on average each earn roughly $15,000 per annum, according to Blume Ventures, drive two-thirds of discretionary spending.

Any contraction in their incomes could force them to cut back, hitting sales of goods from new homes to cars and demand for experiences from dining out to live events. There will be a ripple effect too: Middle-class homes in India employ cooks, cleaners and drivers.

Demand for their services, and those of India’s vast gig economy servicing the middle class, would recede. That puts at risk earnings of carmakers, consumer groups and financial services providers which, together with Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries RELI.NS – the owner of India’s largest retailer - account for nearly 62% of the benchmark Nifty 50 index .NSEI. Sluggish consumption is already hurting some of them: small car sales slowed at Maruti Suzuki India MRTI.NS last year and Unilever's ULVR.L Indian unit has been grappling with weak urban demand.

A potential 30% reduction in the 15-million-strong outsourcing and global capability centre workforce over the next two years could shrink the top consuming class by about 5 million to 135 million.

Assuming Blume Ventures' annual income estimate of $15,000, this cohort's total spending power stands to fall by roughly $75 billion a year, assuming those people don't find other employment or sources of income. That's equivalent to 10% of the Nifty 50 constituents’ net sales of 71.3 trillion rupees ($755 billion) for the financial year ended March 2025, per data from the National Stock Exchange.

Overall household savings are already declining as indebtedness mounts: Indians saved barely 23% of their personal disposable income in the financial year to March 2025, according to an estimate by CLSA, down from nearly 30% two decades earlier. Debt as a share of disposable income surged to 55% from 31% over the same period.

While India’s household debt to GDP ratio is much lower than for most peer economies, meagre earnings mean Indians end up spending 13% of their income on repaying borrowings, higher than 8.5% for China and 8% for the US.

Much of what Indians borrow goes towards financing consumption rather than creating assets. Households are leveraging up to pay for everything from overseas vacations to weddings and smartphone purchases.

Such financing, which the Reserve Bank of India calls non-housing retail loans, makes up 55% of household obligations and is growing faster than mortgages. India's household debt to GDP ratio stands at 41.9%. If half of those borrowings are consumption-linked, it implies household discretionary debt amounts to roughly 21% of GDP. Apply that to India’s nominal GDP of 331 trillion rupees for 2024-25 and you have at risk loans worth 69 trillion rupees across the country’s banks and non-bank lenders.

This threatens the loan quality at financial institutions led by the $130 billion HDFC Bank HDBK.NS as well as lenders backed by global investors from Sumitomo Mitsui Financial 8316.T to Blackstone BX.N who are accelerating their expansion in India to tap retail credit demand.

The impact of AI on the global workforce may ultimately create more jobs. First, though, it may turn India’s already weak consumption and much-vaunted demographic dividend into a nightmare.

Follow Shritama Bose on LinkedIn and X.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

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By Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI, April 28 (Reuters) - India has asked motorists to avoid panic buying and clarified that there was no proposal to raise pump prices for diesel and gasoline, a government official said on Tuesday.

"We have adequate supplies of liquefied petroleum gas, petrol, and diesel. There has been no increase in prices. Please avoid panic buying and do not believe rumours," Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary in the federal oil ministry, said at a news conference on Tuesday in an appeal to buyers.

India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, has been hit by rising oil prices triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.-Isreli war on Iran.

India's crude import prices rose to $120 per barrel earlier this month, denting the margins of retailers on the sale of gasoline and gasoil, as the higher costs have not been factored into the pump prices.

Indian refiners have not raised pump prices of gasoline and gasoil in four years to shield consumers, despite volatility in global markets.

Analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities in a recent report estimated there was a need to raise the price of a liter of gasoline and gasoil by 25-28 rupees after elections in some states end on April 29.

According to estimates by Mumbai-based ICICI Securities, profit after tax for these oil retailers likely declined by 82% in the March quarter over a year ago, as crude oil costs soared but retail prices did not move up in tandem.

Reliance Industries RELI.NS, operator of the world's biggest refining complex and India’s biggest company by market value, late last week flagged "unprecedented" supply disruptions and a sharp hit to profit in its March-quarter earnings.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Adds chairman quote in paragraphs 3 and 6

April 24 (Reuters) - Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries RELI.NS posted a 12% slump in net profit for the fourth quarter, missing market expectations, as higher input costs pressured core businesses.

It was a tough quarter for Reliance's refining business, a key profit driver, as higher crude costs and freight rates, stemming from the Iran war, coincided with export levies and operational curbs aimed at boosting domestic fuel supplies.

The war in West Asia has led to unprecedented dislocation in global supply chains, Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman and managing director, said.

Core earnings at the company's refining business, which contributes nearly a third of the group EBITDA, fell 3.7% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, core earnings from Reliance's digital unit, Reliance Jio Platforms, rose 17.9%. Jio Platforms, which houses the world's second-largest telecom company by users, is set to file for approval for its IPO, Reuters reported in late March.

Ambani said on Friday the firm was advancing steadily

towards the listing, without offering more details.

For the quarter, the cost of materials consumed surged 20% to 1.29 trillion rupees. The company's consolidated net profit fell to 169.71 billion rupees ($1.80 billion), missing analysts' average estimate of 201.16 billion rupees, according to data compiled by LSEG.

($1 = 94.2475 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)

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April 22 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• INDIACAST MEDIA DISTRIBUTION PRIVATE LIMITED HAS AMALGAMATED WITH JIOSTAR

Source text: ID:nBSE9QjdfB

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

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April 20 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• INDIA'S RELIANCE INDUSTRIES SAYS BHARAT MATHUR, ACCUSED IN BRIBERY CASE BY FEDERAL POLICE, WAS ENGAGED AS A CONSULTANT BY COMPANY-STATEMENT

• INDIA'S RELIANCE INDUSTRIES ON BRIBERY CASE ALLEGATIONS: NOT AWARE OF ANY TRANSACTION INVOLVING MATHUR IN NATURE BEING REFERRED TO

• INDIA'S RELIANCE INDUSTRIES SAYS IT HAS NOT APPROVED ANY SUCH UNAUTHORIZED TRANSACTION

Source text: [ID:]

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

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April 15 (Reuters) - Warner Bros Discovery Inc WBD.O:

• WARNER BROS DISCOVERY INC: JIOHOTSTAR AND WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY EXPAND PARTNERSHIP WITH EXCLUSIVE LAUNCH OF HBO MAX IN INDIA

• WARNER BROS DISCOVERY - HBO MAX ADD-ON PACK LAUNCHES ON JIOHOTSTAR AT ₹49 PER MONTH

Further company coverage: WBD.O

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** Shares of India's Reliance Industries RELI.NS fall 2.8% to near one-week low of 1,313 rupees

** India raises export duties on diesel, aviation turbine fuel

** Refiners MRPL MRPL.NS and Chennai Petroleum CHPC.NS fall 2.4% and 1.9%, respectively

** Nomura says MRPL, Nayara, CPCL, HPCL Mittal Energy, Numaligarh and domestic refineries of RELI will be subject to windfall tax on export of diesel and air turbine fuel

** Adds that RELI's export refinery, which accounts for almost half its refining capacity, not impacted

** RELI rated "buy" on average by 32 brokerages, median PT is 1,700 rupees, per data compiled by LSEG

** YTD, RELI stock down 16.4%

(Reporting by Brijesh Patel in Bengaluru)

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April 10 (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd RELI.NS:

• SONU INFRATECH LTD- GETS ORDER WORTH 4.8 MILLION RUPEES

• SONU INFRATECH LTD - GETS ANOTHER WORK ORDER WORTH 5.5 MILLION RUPEES

Source text: ID:nnAZN4SQ8EN

Further company coverage: RELI.NS

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April 9 (Reuters) - Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd BPCL.NS:

• INDIAN FUEL RETAILERS ARE BUYING DIESEL AT DISCOUNTED RATES FROM REFINERS - INDUSTRY SOURCE

Further company coverage: BPCL.NS

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Adds Iranian navy quote in paragraph 4, attacks on ships, graphic

By Jeslyn Lerh and Nerijus Adomaitis

SINGAPORE/OSLO, April 8 (Reuters) - Shippers on Wednesday said they needed more clarity on the terms of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire before resuming transit through the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran said the waterway remained closed to vessels sailing without a permit.

The six‑week conflict had brought traffic through the strait - a chokepoint for about 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments - close to a standstill, pushing global energy prices sharply higher.

Iran said it would offer safe passage in coordination with its armed forces, though its coastguards warned on Wednesday that any ship attempting to sail without permission would be "targeted and destroyed".

"Transit in the Strait of Hormuz is closed yet, and you must receive permission from Iranian Sepah navy," the radio message received by two ship owners and shared with Reuters said.

MAJOR SHIPPING COMPANIES REMAIN CAUTIOUS

The first vessel had transited the strait with Iran's permission following the ceasefire, its state TV said on Wednesday.

The ship's identity was not immediately clear, but MarineTraffic data showed two Greek-owned and two Chinese-owned bulk carriers passing through since early Wednesday.

Iran has previously agreed safe‑passage arrangements with several countries, including India and Iraq.

Major shipping companies remained cautious.

Denmark's Maersk MAERSKb.CO said the ceasefire may create transit opportunities for vessels but did not yet provide full maritime certainty.

German container carrier Hapag‑Lloyd said it needed to see that the ceasefire holds before starting to take orders for selected markets.

INTEREST PICKS UP AMONG ASIAN REFINERS

Restoring flows to normal could take at least six to eight weeks, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen told a call with customers.

Lars Barstad, CEO of oil tanker group Frontline FRO.OL, said the firm was still assessing what the ceasefire meant for shipping. "I want to see the fine print," he told Reuters.

Bimco Chief Safety and Security Officer Jakob Larsen warned that vessels leaving the Gulf without prior coordination with U.S. and Iranian authorities would face heightened risk.

Since the start of the war on February 28, almost 30 maritime incidents involving commercial vessels and offshore infrastructure have been reported across the region, the U.S. Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center said in a note dated April 7.

Some 187 laden tankers carrying 172 million barrels of crude oil and refined products were inside the Gulf as of Tuesday, according to ship tracker Kpler.

Shipping sources said interest in loading Gulf cargoes had picked up among Asian refiners, as well as trader Glencore and French oil major TotalEnergies TTEF.PA, both of which declined to comment.

Asian economies are the main buyers of oil shipped through the strait and have been hit especially hard by the disruption.

"We expect tankers and oil flowing to Iranian‑friendly countries to be the first ones to transit," said Anoop Singh, global head of shipping research at Oil Brokerage, adding more than 50 VLCCs and about 15 Suezmaxes could soon exit the Gulf.

Britain said on Wednesday it would work with the shipping, insurance and energy sectors to try to restore confidence in use of the Strait of Hormuz.

(Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh, Siyi Liu in Singapore, Bernadette Christina in Jakarta, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Nidhi Verma in New Delhi, Ahmad Ghaddar in London, Nerijus Adomaitis in Oslo, Renee Maltezou and Yannis Souliotis in Athens; reporting; Writing by Florence Tan; Editing by Alexander Smith, David Holmes and Keith Weir)

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Adds details from filing, related criminal case, background, paragraphs 4-11

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - Gautam Adani, India's second richest person, will ask a U.S. judge to dismiss the Securities and Exchange Commission's civil fraud case stemming from an alleged bribery scheme, his lawyers said on Tuesday.

Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani were charged by the SEC in November 2024 with orchestrating a scheme to pay or promise to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to benefit Adani Green Energy ADNA.NS, where both men are executives and directors.

The securities fraud case is tied to Adani Green's alleged failure to disclose the scheme in documents for a $750 million bond offering in 2021.

In a filing in the Brooklyn, New York federal court, the Adanis' lawyers said their clients disputed there was any credible evidence supporting the alleged bribery scheme.

The lawyers said the Adanis' lack of involvement in the offering, and the absence of any intent to defraud or negligence, supported a dismissal.

They also called the SEC claims "impermissibly extraterritorial," reflecting how the Adanis and all alleged misconduct were in India, and the bonds were never traded on a U.S. exchange.

The SEC had no immediate comment. Lawyers for the Adanis said they will formally seek a dismissal by April 30.

U.S. prosecutors filed a related criminal case in November 2024 against the Adanis and several other defendants. There have been no public developments in that case since December 2024. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn declined to comment.

Gautam Adani, 63, founded and chairs the conglomerate Adani Group, and is chairman of Adani Green.

He is worth about $60.6 billion, ranking 30th worldwide according to Forbes magazine.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman of the conglomerate Reliance Industries RELI.NS, is India's richest person, worth about $91.4 billion and ranking 20th worldwide, Forbes said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York
Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Bill Berkrot)

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Updates

** Shares of India's Reliance Industries RELI.NS fall 4.5% to near one-year low of 1,290 rupees

** Stock set for a fourth session of losses in five after India imposes windfall tax on diesel exports

** Analysts expect refining margins of RELI, India's largest fuel exporter, to be impacted

** Recently imposed export taxes and oil marketing companies reportedly sourcing discounted crude to ensure refiners also absorb a meaningful share of sector-wide losses as consumers remain protected, says Citi Research

** Says this is the first instance where the burden of under-recoveries has been concentrated on downstream refiners and marketers, alongside partial fiscal absorption

** Other refiners MRPL MRPL.NS and Chennai Petroleum CHPC.NS also down 1.6% and 3.9%, respectively

** Stock rated "buy" on average by 32 brokerages, median PT is 1,700 rupees, per data compiled by LSEG

** YTD, RELI stock down 17.2%

(Reporting by Vivek Kumar M)

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