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Gold failed to glitter this Dussehra as sharply higher prices deterred many consumers, eroding sales by a quarter to 18 tonnes from last year, according to industry body India Bullion & Jewellers Association (IBJA).By value, sales of the yellow metal however climbed by 30-35% consequent to the prevailing high prices. The retail price of gold on Dussehra this year, which was celebrated on Thursday, was Rs 1.16 lakh per 10 gm, a 48% jump from Rs 78,000 per 10 gm on Dussehra 2024. Consumers need to pay goods and services tax (GST) of 3% in addition to the bullion price. A making charge of 15-30% is also levied by jewellers depending on the jewellery design.“Last year Dussehra was a better one as the volume of gold sold was 24 tonnes. This year, the prices have remained at `1.16 lakh per 10 gm on Dussehra, which has dented the demand,” said Surendra Mehta, national secretary of IBJA. 124297624Exchange of Old Gold Rampant“However, consumers have started buying gold as they feel that prices might not fall from this level any soon. Consumers are placing orders for the upcoming Dhanteras, Diwali and wedding season,” he said. Many Indians prefer to buy gold on Dussehra as it is believed that the precious metal brings good luck, success, and prosperity for the entire year. On Friday, gold was trading at Rs 1,16,883 per 10 gm at the retail end, excluding GST.Demand for gold and silver coins have picked up well this Dussehra as many are buying them as an investment tool. Jewellers said gold coins of 5 gm denomination are selling more while silver coins of 20 gm are flying off the shelves. “Investment demand for gold and silver bars remains robust, and customers are making purchases despite price movements. Bullion continues to do well, while bangles, necklaces, and diamond jewellery are showing encouraging momentum,’ said Saurabh Gadgil, managing director of Pune-based PNG Jewellers. He said bookings in lightweight jewellery are encouraging, while exchange of old gold is continuing to sustain demand, contributing nearly 50-55% of sales.The trend of exchanging old gold has accelerated across the country as high bullion prices are keeping consumers away from making fresh purchases. “They are keen to buy 5 or 7 gm of gold in addition to their old gold and get jewellery of their own design,” said Mehta, who is based in Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar, a major gold trading hub.Vikas Kataria, promoter of Madhya Pradesh-based jeweller D.P. Abhushan, however, noted encouraging demand across central India. “Wedding jewellery from diamonds to lightweight and polki designs is also performing well, setting a very positive tone for the festive season. Despite higher gold prices, sentiment remains strong,” he said.In South India, jewellers reported lower sales of gold during the ongoing festive season. Varghese Alukkas, MD of Jos Alukkas, said many consumers are resorting to buying gold bars to convert them into jewellery later for the upcoming wedding season. Gold exchange has also picked up. “Gold bars of 10 gm to 20 gm are selling more. We are also trying to push diamond jewellery in 18 karat, 14 karat and 9 karat, but customers are leaning more towards gold jewellery. Old gold exchange has gone up to 55-60% this Dussehra,” said Alukkas. Jos Alukkas has 63 stores spread over five states in South India.

Homegrown direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty and personal care brands are continuing to attract investors despite the expanding footprint of global brands in the domestic market.The total funding raised by 20 leading D2C brands including Sugar Cosmetics, Innovist, Fae Beauty and Renee Cosmetics increased 7% from a year earlier to $63.1 million (about ₹560 crore) during January to September 2025, per data from business intelligence firm Tracxn. Notably, total funding raised by these brands so far this year marks a nearly threefold surge from $21.6 million in 2020."On an average, investing in the beauty category, given its high margins and capital efficiency, can return 10 to 25 times the investment. You can see that level of return with the investors behind Minimalist and Mamaearth," said Arjun Anand, managing director & head of Asia, Verlinvest, a Belgium-headquartered investment firm. "This is not the case with most other consumer categories. And this is being driven by consumption, premiumisation and democratisation," he said.124296720This year, RAS Luxury Skincare secured $5 million in funding led by Unilever Ventures while ayurvedic beauty brand Inde Wild, too, raised a similar amount in a seed extension round, again led by Unilever Ventures to support its US expansion through Sephora.In August, Renee Cosmetics raised $5.8 million in a Series C round from Playbook, Midas Partners and a few other investors. Foxtale raised $30 million in a Series C round from Panthera, Kose Corporation and a few others. Innovist, the parent of brands such as Bare Anatomy, Chemist At Play and Sunscoop, raised $16 million from ICICI Venture and Mirabilis Investment Trust.Neha Singh, co-founder at Tracxn said beauty brands in India are raising funds to accelerate growth, enhance product offerings and expand their market presence.India's beauty and personal care market, estimated at $24 billion in FY25, is expected to touch $40-45 billion by FY30. Industry executives say online contribution for the category climbed to nearly 17% in 2024 from 13% in 2023.Malini Adupureddy, founder and CEO, Deconstruct Skincare, said D2C brands are benefiting from the tailwinds of an ecommerce boom in tier-2 and -3 markets that is opening up a completely new consumer base.Swedish brand H&M recently entered the beauty segment in India while pop icon Rihanna launched her brand Fenty in partnership with Reliance-owned Tira. Multiple global brands such as MAC, Huda, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Smashbox and Charlotte Tilbury also entered this highly cluttered market.Korean brands like Innisfree, COSRX and Beauty of Joseon, too, are trying to win over Indian consumers though with premium pricing, thanks to the Hallyu wave and rise of Korean influence on OTT platforms, food and beauty. In contrast, the D2C Indian brands are playing the pricing game and riding on the quick commerce boom.Siddharth Sanghvi, head-business and finance, Renee Cosmetics, said established brands have a stronger hold on the offline market but the online market is dominated by new-age domestic brands.This lure of cracking online pushed Hindustan Unilever (HUL) to acquire 90.5% of Minimalist, a homegrown skin care brand, for ₹2,706 crore while Marico bought Beardo for nearly ₹400 crore and Emami acquired The Man Company.Sanghvi said any major investment firm's decision to invest hinges on a profitable exit option. "For these companies, the gap that the larger companies like the HULs or any other house of brands had was the lack of online presence, which is why we are seeing acquisitions of the new age brands," he said.Anand at Verlinvest said established companies such as HUL are premiumising, not by global but by Indian standards, and hence Minimalist can be part of that premiumisation process. "Earlier no one was supplying those premium products, and a plethora of startups are now doing exactly that, and in many niches being created," he said.

Eyewear retailer Lenskart has received an approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for its initial public offering (IPO), people briefed on the matter said. The company will now file its updated prospectus over the next few weeks and is targeting a listing for mid-November, one of the persons said. Lenskart had filed its draft red herring prospectus with Sebi in July, and is looking to raise Rs 2,150 crore in fresh capital from the issue.Besides the primary portion, shareholders including founders Peyush Bansal, Neha Bansal, Sumeet Kapahi and Amit Chaudhary, in addition to SoftBank, Premji Invest, Temasek, Kedaara Capital and Alpha Wave Global are selling a total of 132.3 million shares through the issue’s offer-for-sale component.Including secondary sales, the total IPO size is expected to be Rs 7,500-8,000 crore ($850-900 million), ET had reported earlier. This would make it one of the largest public offerings this year, following those of Tata Capital and LG Electronics.Kotak Mahindra, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Avendus Capital and Intensive Fiscal Services are merchant bankers for its IPO.The Gurugram-based company’s public offering is the biggest among a number of new-age company IPOs lined up for this year. Stockbroking firm Groww, ecommerce marketplace Meesho, payments firm PhonePe and edtech platform PhysicsWallah are also preparing sizable listings. Unlike Lenskart, they have opted for Sebi’s confidential filing process.Lenskart turned profitable in fiscal 2025, posting a net profit of Rs 297 crore against a net loss of Rs 10 crore in FY24. Its revenue increased 22% to Rs 6,625 crore from Rs 5,428 crore in the previous year.The company, which won Startup of the Year at the ET Startup Awards 2024, will use around Rs 272 crore of fresh capital from the issue for setting up new stores in India, while Rs 591 crore will be utilised towards meeting leasing, rental and other expenses of its existing 2,700-plus stores. The company has also earmarked an undisclosed portion of the proceeds for acquisitions.Also Read: ETtech explainer: Decoding Lenskart’s draft prospectus for Rs 8,000 crore IPO

Capital markets regulator Sebi on Friday said Synoptics Technologies and its promoters will remain barred from the securities market till the outcome of a probe in a case of alleged siphoning off IPO proceeds.The company's promoters are Jatin Shah, Jagmohan Manilal Shah and Janvi Jatin Shah have also been debarred by the regulator."I...hereby confirm the directions issued vide the interim order dated May 6, 2025," Sebi's whole-time member Kamlesh C Varshney said in the confirmatory order.In May this year, Sebi had passed an interim order and barred Synoptics Technologies Ltd (STL) and its promoters from the securities market, following allegations of siphoning off IPO proceeds.In the interim order, the regulator said, "The examination revealed a well laid out plan of the company (STL) and the lead manager, FOCL (First Overseas Capital Ltd), to siphon away funds raised in the IPO"."The amount transferred ostensibly for meeting 'Issue management fees, underwriting and selling commissions, registrar fees, and other IPO related expenses' was Rs 19 crore and grossly disproportionate to the Rs 80 lakh disclosed as issue expenses in the red herring prospectus of STL." As per the order, the amount accounted for more than 54 per cent of the total proceeds raised by Synoptics through the fresh issue of shares worth Rs 35.08 crore and 35 per cent of the total issue size (Rs 54.04 crore).Accordingly, Sebi directed FOCL not to take up any new assignments relating to merchant banking activities in the securities market till further directions from the regulator.Sebi observed that FOCL had undertaken initial public offering (IPO) assignments for 20 companies, which were listed on the SME segment of BSE and NSE from May 2022 to April 2025.In July 2023, Mumbai-based Synoptics Technologies raised funds through an SME IPO, and FOCL acted as the lead manager to the issue.The interim order came after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) examined the matter on receiving complaints alleging irregularities in the bidding process following the closure of the IPO.

U.S. President Donald Trump today gave Hamas a final deadline to accept a proposed peace agreement, saying the group must sign by Sunday at 6 p.m. Washington, D.C. time — “or all hell will break out,” he warned.In a post on Truth Social, Trump called Hamas “a ruthless and violent threat” and accused the group of perpetrating the October 7 massacre in Israel, saying it had killed civilians including babies, women and the elderly. He wrote that more than 25,000 Hamas “soldiers” had already been killed, and said many remaining fighters were “surrounded and MILITARILY TRAPPED, just waiting for me to give the word, ‘GO,’ for their lives to be quickly extinguished.” He added that Hamas members “will be hunted down, and killed.” Trump urged “all innocent Palestinians” to leave areas he described as at risk and said they would be cared for. He said wealthy nations in the region, together with the United States and Israel, had agreed to a peace deal that he called a historic opportunity — “PEACE, after 3000 years.” According to his post, the deal would spare the lives of remaining Hamas fighters if the group accepts.“RELEASE THE HOSTAGES, ALL OF THEM, INCLUDING THE BODIES OF THOSE THAT ARE DEAD, NOW!” Trump wrote, adding that an agreement must be reached by Sunday evening at 6 p.m. Washington time. He warned that if the “LAST CHANCE” agreement is not reached, “all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas.” Hamas had on Tuesday said it would discuss Trump’s proposal within the group and with other Palestinian factions before responding. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced support for the plan, but it remains unclear whether — or when — Hamas will accept the proposal. The plan reportedly calls for Hamas to disarm in exchange for an end to the fighting, humanitarian aid and reconstruction assistance for Gaza, where officials say tens of thousands of Palestinians have died in the conflict.