ICRA Limited reaffirmed credit rating for Bharat Electronics Rs4,300cr borrowing programme. The credit rating agency has reaffirmed the long-term rating of ICRA AAA to Rs500cr fund based limits of credit and long term - unallocated to Rs300cr of the company. The outlook on the long-term rating is stable. The short-term rating of ICRA A1 has also been reaffirmed to Rs3,500cr.

Traders' body CAIT on February 18 wrote to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal to impose a ban on Amazon's e-commerce portal and its operations in India, accusing the global e-tailing giant of indulging in predatory pricing, deep discounting and inventory control. They also want the government to probe the business practices of Amazon and Flipkart.

IDFC First Bank Limited on Thursday confirmed the approval for raising of funds for an amount aggregating up to Rs3,000cr, in one or more tranches by way of issuance of securities. The company stock was in demand during morning trade on Friday. It climbed a fesh 52-week high of Rs62.40 per piece. Each stock was trading at Rs61.30 per piece up Rs3.20 or 5.51% at around 10.58 am.

SBI Cards and Payment Services on Friday joined the Rs1 trillion m-cap club after its shares surged nearly 23% so far this year. The stock hit an all-time high of Rs1,095 on BSE. At 9.36am, the script was trading at Rs1,085.25 on BSE, up 2.1% from its previous close. SBI Cards’ gross write-offs during the quarter stood at Rs648 cr compared with Rs218 crin the last quarter and Rs292cr a year ago.

Elon Musk is back on the top, as his wealth rose to $199.9 bn after the rocket company, SpaceX completed another funding round. He surpassed Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos, who briefly reclaimed the title as the world’s richest person this week after Tesla shares fell and dragged down Musk’s net worth. SpaceX raised another $850 million this month from a group of investors led by Sequoia Capital.

The Centre will file an appeal against Cairn Energy’s $1.2 billion arbitration award. Cairn Energy's top management will meet union finance ministry officials again on February 19. Earlier, they held a meeting on this agenda on February 18 as well. The government will contest its sovereign rights to tax and also other suits by Cairn Energy at various international courts.

Reliance is finalising the contours of demerging its oil-to-chemicals business into a wholly-owned subsidiary. The move will help the company attract global investors like Saudi Aramco. Talks between both sides are back on track, they added. Deal negotiations between the two sides are expected to gather momentum from April of 2021. The final deal may see a combination of stock swap and cash.

Novavax inked a deal with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to provide 1.1 billion doses of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for the COVAX Facility. The vaccine doses will be manufactured and distributed globally by Novavax and Serum Institute of India (SII). Novavax had earlier licensed its COVID-19 vaccine technology to SII with no upfront, milestone, or technology transfer payments.

Gold was trading with a negative bias, however, it maintained above the crucial support of Rs 46,000 in the Indian market on February 19, tracking a muted trend in international spot prices. On the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX), April gold contracts were trading lower by 0.26% at Rs 46,005 for 10 grams at 0920 hours. March silver futures were trading 1.2% lower at Rs 67,640 a kilogram.

Zoom's founder and Chief Executive Eric S Yuan announced on Thursday that the pandemic-induced lockdowns resulted in a 70 times hike in Zoom's user base in India in the four months to April 2020, He said the app, which enjoyed a runaway jump in valuations after the pandemic, will continue to be relevant for its users as the world switches to a hybrid mode of working.

The ED will initiate a second investigation into e-commerce giant Amazon, based on a Reuters report which found that the e-commerce giant has for years given select sellers preferential treatment and used them to “circumvent” India’s FDI rules. The documents reviewed by Reuters were for 2012-2019 and included business reports, draft meeting notes, emails, and PowerPoint slides.

North America’s first Bitcoin ETF got off to a stellar start in its debut, with investors exchanging $165 million worth of shares. After a relentless surge, the first Bitcoin product that’s officially labelled an exchange-traded fund debuted Thursday in Toronto. It’s worth noting, though, that Europe has several crypto-tracking products that function like an ETF.

Airtel added a maximum number of wireless users, for the 5th month in a row. The telco added 4.05 mn wireless subscribers in Dec to take its base to 338.70 million, followed by Reliance Jio, which added 478,917 subscribers to take its base to 408.77 million. With strong additions, Airtel also narrowed the gap with market leader Reliance Jio, which has seen its subscriber additions slowing down.

Sebi on Thursday disposed of the adjudication proceedings against six entities after they settled cases related to alleged fraudulent trading activities in illiquid stock options segment on BSE. These entities include Panem Steel, Phoenix Asset Management, Polylace India, Pristine Capital Consultants, Priyasha Meven Finance, and Priti Devi.

Flipkart led international net sales for Walmart during the three months ended January, the US-based retailer announced on Thursday. Speaking at the company’s 2021 investment community meeting, president and CEO Doug McMillon opined “This (India) is a market where we will step on the gas to ensure we have the appropriate level of investments in areas like the supply chain.”