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The proposed $40bn merger between India’s biggest private sector bank and mortgage provider has been driven by tighter regulation of the country’s shadow banking sector, according to the executive spearheading the deal. The merger of HDFC Bank and Housing Development Financing Corporation (HDFC) would be the largest in the country’s history and create a financial

In February, Xiaomi founder and chief executive Lei Jun threw down the gauntlet to Apple and Samsung, vowing to make his company China’s top-selling premium brand in three years. “[It’s] a war of life and death,” Lei said in a post on Chinese social media site Weibo. Xiaomi, the world’s second-largest smartphone vendor, is a

By Tom Bartlett Often, colour is seen as being only decorative, but at Waldo Works, the agency I co-founded, it’s one of the first things we think about on a new project. Our approach has always been to use colour to enhance the architecture of a space: to provide emotional cues, reinforce design agendas and

Claer Barrett is right to say that higher national insurance, rising inflation and stratospheric energy bills will be financially catastrophic for millions of people on low incomes (FT Money, March 19). I’d go further — the cost of living crisis is a health crisis too. Health issues and problems with money exacerbate each other. Financial

There appears to be a prevailing belief that during lockdown Boris Johnson morphed into a 21st century Marie Antoinette, scoffing cake and guzzling wine, while saying, “Let them go to parties” — only to be reminded that his own rules prohibited them from doing so (FT View, April 13). Many commentators have written that he

The number of vacant NHS hospital beds in England is lower than at any time since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, as the health service contends with a wave of infections unleashed by the Omicron variant while attempting to clear a massive backlog of outstanding treatment. In the week ending April 12, an average

Deloitte has sharply scaled back its London office space in one of the most significant reductions of real estate by a UK professional services firm since the pandemic triggered a shift to hybrid working. The Big Four accounting and consulting firm will leave a building at its New Street Square campus next month, taking to

At the outset of the pandemic, James Daunt instructed managers at US chain Barnes & Noble to take every book off their shelves, “weed out the rubbish”, make each section flow and put their stores back together again. The overhaul is a strategy that the managing director of Waterstones, the chain’s owner, has deployed many

Will China’s zero-Covid policy slow its economic growth? Shanghai’s Covid-19 lockdown has cast a shadow over China’s economic outlook for the remainder of 2022. Investors will pay special attention to this week’s reading on first-quarter gross domestic product, which will set the tone for how aggressively policymakers in Beijing will need to act to prop

The writer is a science commentator The first approval of an Alzheimer’s drug for 18 years should have been cause for celebration. But aducanumab seems to have broken new ground in all the wrong ways. This month, it became the first US-approved drug that will not be routinely covered by government healthcare schemes. It may

Daimler Trucks, eBay and a US energy company were among the recent buyers of carbon offsets created by projects that involved injecting carbon dioxide underground in order to extract more oil. Three US-based extraction projects were eligible to generate credits because their processes involved the capture of CO2. But this was used as a way

Petrochemicals group Ineos has warned that British manufacturing is coming under threat from competing regions such as the US because of its higher energy costs. Britain’s largest privately owned company said European chemical producers were suffering from gas prices that had hit seven times the levels paid by competitors in the US, where abundant shale

Shares in start-ups are sinking in private trading as a sell-off in public technology companies and a pause in new listings send shockwaves through Silicon Valley. Forge Global, one of the largest venues for trading in private start-ups, said the prices of companies on its platform had fallen 19.9 per cent in February and March

Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett’s 10-month-old coalition government is facing its stiffest challenge to date under the combined pressures of a wave of attacks and the shock loss of its parliamentary majority. Fourteen people have been killed in a spate of Palestinian attacks inside Israeli cities, the most recent in Tel Aviv on April 7,

Isaiah switches effortlessly between Greek and Russian as he welcomes visitors to his church in Tamassos, deep among orange groves in the Cyprus countryside. With its five shiny gold domes — brought from St Petersburg — it is the first Russian Orthodox church in Cyprus, funded by the owner of a Russian construction company and

Donald Trump’s political machine slowed its spending in the first quarter of the year compared to 2021, as fundraising ebbed slightly and the former president turned to high-profile endorsements to influence this year’s midterm elections. According to an FT analysis of federal campaign finance filings submitted ahead of a Friday night deadline, the former president

The cocktail trolley is back in vogue. Dolce & Gabbana has included one as part of its first homewares line. Meanwhile at the luxury design ecommerce site 1stdibs, sales are up 30 per cent. “People are trying to recreate that experience of happy hour at home,” says 1stdibs editorial director Anthony Barzilay Freund. “And who doesn’t

George Osborne is advising Todd Boehly’s bid to buy Chelsea Football Club from sanctioned Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, as the auction enters its final stages, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The former UK chancellor, now a partner at boutique advisory firm Robey Warshaw, is adding his political experience as Boehly competes against

British households face paying tens of millions of pounds in administration costs for the government’s controversial scheme to reduce energy bills by £200 in October. The energy bills support scheme has been widely criticised by opposition parties and consumer groups because the £200 discount will have to be repaid by consumers in annual instalments of

This year’s hawkish change in tack from central banks is close to ending the era of negative-yielding debt, shrinking the global tally of bonds with sub-zero yields by $11tn. Bond prices have tumbled this year as central banks move to end large-scale asset purchases and raise interest rates in their battle with soaring inflation, pushing

If Elon Musk thought that casting himself as Twitter’s saviour would win widespread backing for his $43bn hostile takeover bid, he was in for a rude awakening. The world’s richest man laid out some sweeping claims for this week’s unsolicited approach. Shareholders, he promised, would “love” the rich premium he was offering. He would bring