Newspaper Summary 311026

 

TVS Capital forays into private credit via TVS Alts, 'will back performing mid-size firms'

Sindhu Hariharan

Chennai

TVS Capital Funds (TCF), a marquee investment firm, is looking to expand beyond its private equity roots by entering private credit. As it enters its 20th year, TCF, founded by Gopal Srinivasan, has launched "TVS Alts" as a natural extension of its investing journey.

TVS Alts has received internal approvals, filed applications with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and expects to receive the necessary regulatory approvals in the coming weeks.

"We are initially targeting a fund of ₹750 crore with a greenshoe option of ₹500 crore. It will focus on secured lending to companies with ticket sizes of ₹40–100 crore and we are targetting returns in the range of 16–17 per cent," Shyam Srinivasan, Founder and Executive Chairman, TVS Alternatives, told businessline.

Like the group's equity play, the private credit strategy is also expected to be built on domestic capital, with potential investors, including insurance companies, bank treasuries and corporates, looking to diversify their portfolios.

Sector-Agnostic Strategy

The investment strategy will be sector-agnostic, and TVS Alts will focus on performing companies with sound credit profiles and adequate security, Srinivasan noted.

TVS Alts hopes to complete the first close within six months of receiving regulator approval, and is confident of a final close in 12–14 months.

"We are clear about looking at performing credit," said Srinivasan, who is overseeing the venture.

New Venture & Leadership

Among its USPs is a core team with collective experience across commercial banking, private equity, investment banking and recovery.

• Managing Partner: Manish Makaria, who previously worked with TVS Capital and subsequently at Sill Funds Management.

• Board Members: IFC's Prasad Gopalan, banking veteran Ashutosh Khajuria, former SIDBI executive Mani Krishna Iyer, and industrialist Srilalitha Gopal.

Srinivasan also added that the initial fund is expected to make 14–15 investments over its life. As the strategy gains traction, TVS Capital could also raise additional private credit funds over the next three to five years.

"Governed like a bank, structured like a fund, run like a business, trusted like no other — that best describes our philosophy," he said.

For TCF, which recently closed its fourth private equity fund with a corpus of nearly ₹4,000 crore, this is likely a step to explore multiple financial services avenues. TCF owns 90 per cent of TVS Alts, and Srinivasan owns the rest.

Subscriber growth, higher ARPU aid Jio Platforms' profit

STRONG SHOW. Company added 9.1 million users in Q2, revenue up 11.3%; Akash Ambani says will continue investing in satcom, 6G and AI-integrated services

Vallari Sanzgiri

Mumbai

Jio Platforms reported a 13 per cent year-on-year increase in net profit to ₹8,387 crore for the September quarter, driven by strong subscriber additions, higher average revenue per user (ARPU) and continued momentum across its digital services businesses.

Revenue from operations grew 11.3 per cent, while EBITDA rose 16.6 per cent to ₹21,879 crore, supported by robust revenue growth and a 250 basis-point expansion in operating margins.

Subscriber Base

Jio's subscriber base stood at 542.4 million at the end of September, reflecting a 7.1 per cent increase from a year earlier. The company added 9.1 million net subscribers during the quarter.

ARPU improved 1.5 per cent to ₹218.8 per subscriber per month, aided by tariff revisions and higher usage levels.

Metric	Q2 FY26	Q1 FY27	Q2 FY27
Revenue (₹ cr)	42,652	45,961	47,485
Profit (₹ cr)	7,375	7,764	8,387
Monthly ARPU (₹)	211.4	215.6	218.8
Customer base (million)	506.4	533.3	542.4

Data traffic on the network reached 71.3 billion GB, registering a 22 per cent rise. Average data consumption per user stood at 44.2 GB per month.

JioAirFiber continued its rapid expansion, with the subscriber base reaching 15.1 million users.

Global Expansion

Akash Ambani, MD, Jio Platforms, said the company's performance reflected the strength of its nationwide 5G network and the increasing adoption of broadband and digital services. Jio will continue investing in satellite communications, 6G intellectual property and AI-integrated voice and data services, building on the technology investments that have underpinned the company's growth over the last decade, he added.

Regarding the company's plans for international expansion, Ambani said the opportunity will be focused as a managed service partner to customers rather than one where it sells proprietary stacks as a hardware commission or software as a SaaS service.

"It's not going to be a heavy capex rollout. You won't see us going and putting up towers and fiber and infrastructure but this is something that we think that will be enabled because of the only proprietary stack that we have," said Ambani.

Defining Milestone

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries CMD Mukesh Ambani described the recently completed Jio IPO as a defining milestone for the company.

"The digital services business continued its robust growth this quarter. Jio's performance across mobility, home broadband and enterprise services remained strong, with healthy growth in earnings," he said.

He added that Jio had built a proprietary technology stack and an expanding portfolio of digital platforms and enterprise solutions, extending well beyond connectivity, and reiterated the company's focus on developing indigenous deep-tech capabilities to create long-term value for customers and shareholders.

Diesel shortage lifts India's exports to 12-month high in October

Rishi Ranjan Kala

New Delhi

An acute shortage of diesel globally aided Indian refiners to export as much as 2.9 million tonnes of the critical transport and industrial fuel during October, the highest in the last one year.

Diesel shipments from India hit 7,00,000 barrels per day (b/d) last month, compared to 6,20,000 b/d during September, Kpler data showed.

India's October diesel exports hit their highest level since September 2025. India is capturing the global diesel supply crunch, and the October jump comes down to three factors: Refinery runs at record highs, strong margins and domestic demand.

Indian refineries are running above 100 per cent utilisation, helped by limited maintenance this year beyond a few turnarounds and unplanned outages, it added.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said continued disruptions to West Asia exports, compounded by lower supply from Russia and some Asian countries, cut global diesel/gasoil availability by 1.5 mb/d in Q2 2026 and 1.7 mb/d in Q3 2026 compared with a year earlier, putting diesel markets under extreme pressure.

Sumit Ritolia, Kpler's Lead Research Analyst for Refining & Modeling, pointed out that high utilisation and limited maintenance allowed refiners to maximise throughput and push more barrels into the export market. "Max diesel operations at mega export-oriented refineries. India's large, complex export-focused refineries are tilting their yields toward diesel. Their scale and export infrastructure make it easy to supply Asia, Africa, Europe and even the US," he told businessline.

Elevated diesel cracks make exports highly profitable, and continued access to competitively priced crude, including Russian barrels, supports refining economics further, Ritolia emphasised.

"Indian diesel exports are expected to stay strong. Refinery runs should hold around 5.6–5.7 mb/d, with no major maintenance planned, so refiners can keep running at high utilisation and maximising diesel output," Ritolia anticipated.

The offsetting factor is domestic demand. Seasonal strength, including the festive season, freight and agricultural activity, along with stable retail prices, is expected to keep domestic diesel consumption firm, he added.

Keralam needs a sustainable path

ECO AGENDA: Human development is good, but the State must move from an ecologically damaging extraction economy

M.A. OOMMEN

There is no need to retell the story of Keralam's remarkable achievements in human development or its strong performance on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Even so, because the State is counted among the most fiscally distressed States, sustaining high standards in education, health, infrastructure, social security and so on requires fiscal strength, which in turn depends on prudent, strategic use of resources. The central argument of the article is that Keralam has failed to manage its substantial foreign remittances and rich natural capital in the long-term interests of its people.

Despite a population of only 2.6 per cent, Keralam accounted for more than 19 per cent of India's foreign remittances. The magnitude becomes clearer when compared with State finances. In 2023-24, the State's total expenditure was ₹1.59 trillion and its own-source revenue ₹0.9 trillion. Remittances were more than 2.5 times the State's own-source revenue and accounted for over 23 per cent of Net State Domestic Product, up from 13.5 per cent in 2018. Although the number of emigrants declined, remittance flows continued to rise, partly because of the rupee's depreciation against the dollar.

Remittance Use and Economic Structure

The central question is whether these resources have been used with the vision and prudence needed to secure lasting benefits for the community.

Keralam did experience a construction boom and rapid service-led growth. After near stagnation before the mid-1970s, its economy gained momentum, using the 2011-12 base series, growth consistently exceeded the all-State average from 1995-96 onwards and slowed only after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) data from 1972-73 to 2023-24 tell an even more striking story. From a low position in 1972-73, Keralam rose to the top ranks, behind Punjab and Haryana, by 1987-88. From 1993-94 to 2023-24, it generally recorded the country's highest rural MPCE, apart from small exceptions such as Goa and Sikkim. Over the past 35-40 years, it has become a major consumer-goods market, notably for costly liquor and harmful drugs.

In his paper Keralam Economy through the Lens of GST Data, Professor Sushil Khanna estimated that the State recorded nearly ₹24.3 trillion in intra-State and inter-State transactions in 2019-20. The year was affected by Covid-19 and was not an ideal benchmark, but the scale of economic activity is clear.

Khanna's critical finding is that Keralam had a trade deficit of about ₹1 trillion: Keralam imported goods worth ₹1.5 trillion but exported only ₹0.55 trillion, which included products from the Cochin Refineries, a central government undertaking. Consumer demand in Keralam therefore generates significant multiplier effects in other States, particularly Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. No wonder, manufacturing has remained below 10 per cent of the State's GSDP, compared with over 20 per cent in Tamil Nadu and around 15 per cent in Karnataka.

This pattern raises concerns about the State's dependence on consumption and its limited productive capacity. The sustainability of an economy with an annual trade deficit of ₹1 trillion deserves closer scrutiny.

Figure 1 compares the credit-deposit (CD) ratios of scheduled commercial banks in Keralam, Tamil Nadu and India from 1991 to 2023, using Reserve Bank of India statistics. It reveals the persistent underutilisation of Keralam's bank deposits. From 1993 to 2004, the State's CD ratio remained between 41 and 47 per cent. By contrast, Tamil Nadu's ratio exceeded 100 per cent from 2005, reaching 122.1 per cent in 2013. Tamil Nadu was evidently able to put deposits, including idle funds from Keralam, to more productive use. This is the context in which I once described Keralam as "a beggar sitting on a bench of gold."

Ecological Overkill

Keralam's exceptional natural capital has earned it the name "God's Own Country," yet construction and economic expansion are placing its ecological foundations under severe strain. Its 41 west-flowing rivers, backwaters including Vembanad (India's longest lake, roughly 600-kilometre coastline), biodiversity-rich midlands and wetland paddy systems, and the unique Western Ghats are all under pressure. The scale of degradation points to an ecological overkill.

Paddy lands, which accounted for more than 35 per cent of cultivated land when the State was formed, have dwindled to less than 7 per cent, largely through conversion for construction. Their loss is not simply agricultural: paddy fields and wetlands retain water, mitigate floods, recharge groundwater and sustain biodiversity. Destroying them weakens the ecological resilience essential to Keralam's long-term development.

The dangers associated with quarrying, metal crushing and sand mining—often controlled by vested interests—are well known, but their political economy has received inadequate scrutiny. Environmental policy-making and implementation remain deeply unsatisfactory. Reports of the Legislative Environment Committees have often failed to confront quarrying directly.

Key Observation: A 2019 report noted that illegal quarries outnumbered legal ones 10 to one. Yet more quarrying and metal-crushing units were sanctioned even after the devastating floods and landslides of 2018 and 2019.

Given the State's ecological fragility, the Legislative Assembly's unanimous rejection of the Madhav Gadgil Committee Report (2013) is particularly troubling. Its recommendations sought to protect the Western Ghats and safeguard the region's ecological future. Rejection reflected the failure to reconcile short-term economic and political interests with long-term environmental security.

Keralam should not ignore Gadgil's response after the Pettimudi landslide, which killed 70 people on the night of August 6, 2020.

It remains uncertain whether the State has learned the right lessons from repeated floods and landslides. The issue is not only whether relief and rehabilitation were provided, but whether disasters have transformed environmental governance, land-use planning and natural resource management.

Institutional Responses and the Way Forward

The 2018 floods did lead to an institutional response. Under the Resilient Kerala initiative, Keralam mobilised $370 million from the World Bank. The programme aimed to strengthen resilience through policy and institutional reforms across key sectors. Its objectives included integrated river-basin management, sustainable sand management, climate resilient agriculture, risk-informed land-use planning, multiyear capital planning and disaster-management plans at all levels.

The Second Biannual Implementation Progress Report of the Resilient Kerala Programme (P174778), covering March 1 to August 31, 2022, emphasised resilience-related policies and institutional reforms to support these objectives. But how much has changed in practice? Have reforms improved environmental regulation and land-use decisions or reduced ecological vulnerability? The persistence of damaging practices suggests a substantial gap between policy commitments and implementation.

Will the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment following the devastating Meppadi landslide of 2024 produce a different outcome, or will its recommendations also remain largely unimplemented? I have deliberately left aside the politically sensitive question of minerals and mineral-bearing sands, including ilmenite, rutile, monazite, thorium-bearing deposits and black sands. The underlying political economy deserves careful examination.

Keralam's future depends on moving beyond consumption-led expansion and ecologically damaging extraction towards a development model that combines human development with productive capacity, fiscal resilience and environmental sustainability. Without such a shift, the State risks undermining the very achievements of which it is justly proud.

(The writer is Economic Fellow, CDS, Thiruvananthapuram)

PE/VC investments jump 46% to $17.1 b in Q3

Our Bureau

Mumbai

Private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investments in India jumped 46 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to $17.1 billion in the September quarter, driven largely by a sharp increase in big-ticket deals and investments in infrastructure, according to the latest IVCA-EY report.

Investments were also more than double the $7.6 billion recorded in the June quarter. However, the number of deals fell 9 per cent y-o-y to 348 from 384, as the increase in investment value was concentrated in larger transactions.

The quarter saw 36 large deals, defined as transactions above $100 million, worth $13 billion.

These accounted for 76 per cent of overall PE/VC investments, compared with 56 per cent a year earlier. The largest transaction was KKR's $1.4 billion acquisition of Medicover India's hospital business.

The sharp rise was also driven by infrastructure and real estate, with investments in these two asset classes rising 182 per cent y-o-y to $8.6 billion, while pure-play PE/VC investments, excluding the two, slipped 2 per cent to $8.5 billion.

BUYOUT BOOM

Buyouts were the largest investment category at $5.1 billion, more than five times the $1 billion recorded a year earlier. Start-up investments rose 55 per cent to $4.8 billion, while growth investments were largely flat at $3.5 billion.

PIPE investments increased to $2.6 billion, while credit investments fell 54 per cent to $1.2 billion.

Infrastructure was the biggest sector, attracting $7.2 billion, followed by healthcare at $3.1 billion and real estate at $1.4 billion. Together, the three accounted for 69 per cent of investments during the quarter.

September alone recorded $7 billion of investments, the highest monthly figure in 2026 and the highest since May 2024.

The month saw 14 large deals worth $5.4 billion, accounting for 77 per cent of investments.

"Going forward, we expect PE/VC investors to remain cautious and selective and prioritise resilience of future profitability and return on capital," said Vivek Soni, Partner and National Leader, Private Equity Services at EY India.