ET NEWS

Dutch brewer Heineken said on Monday it will buy the beverage and retail businesses of Costa Rica's Florida Ice and Farm Company for $3.2 billion in cash, boosting its presence across Central America. Heineken will gain ownership of Costa Rica's century-old beer "Imperial" through the deal, as well as a soft drink business with its own brands and a PepsiCo bottling license. The deal comes months after Heineken warned that volumes would be softer than expected for the remainder of the year and opted not to raise its annual profit outlook, citing volatility, including from U.S. trade tariffs. The world's no. 2 brewer will buy the remaining 75% stake it does not already own in Distribuidora La Florida, FIFCO's beverage, food and retail division, which includes more than 300 outlets in Costa Rica, as well as operations in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The deal also includes a 75% stake purchase in Nicaragua Brewing Holding, a 25% stake in Heineken Panama, and full ownership of FIFCO's beyond beer business in Mexico. The transaction, which is expected to complete in the first half of 2026, will be immediately accretive to operating margin and earnings per share, before exceptional items, the company said. Heineken expects its net debt to increase by 3.2 billion euros ($3.77 billion) after the deal. The company started its partnership with FIFCO in 1986 and bought a 25% stake in Distribuidora La Florida in 2002. In 2024, Distribuidora La Florida reported a net revenue of $1.13 billion and operating profit of $278 million, excluding FIFCO USA. FIFCO, which makes beers, wines, non-alcoholic beverages and food, manages 5 production plants and 13 distribution centers across Central America, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the United States. It exports to more than 10 countries. FIFCO is exploring strategic alternatives for FIFCO USA, Heineken said.

Brokerages said the earnings hit for Indian IT firms on account of Donald Trump’s $100,000 H-1B levy is likely to be modest and largely offset by higher offshoring and localisation. 124058722Nomura, Kotak and BofA see the disruption as short-lived and are advising clients to accumulate largecap names on weakness, with Infosys, TCS, HCL Tech and Tech Mahindra among their top picks. Some brokerages also see selective opportunities in midcaps such as Coforge and Firstsource.

Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has proposed changes to the framework covering technical glitches in the online trading systems of stockbrokers.It suggested modifying the definition of technical glitch to exclude problems occurring after trading hours and which are not under the control of stockbrokers.Any malfunction in the electronic system of a stockbroker is now termed technical glitch.The regulator said the proposed framework would be made applicable to stockbrokers providing internet-based trading platforms and having more than 10,000 clients as on March 31 of the previous financial year. As a result, as many as 457 small stockbrokers would move out of this framework, Sebi said in a discussion paper on Monday."This will result in ease of compliance for such stockbrokers considering their low clientele base and relatively less of technology dominance in their trading services," it said.Sebi said a financial disincentive structure would not be applicable for the technical glitches which do not affect the broker's ability to provide seamless services to their clients; for instance, a technical glitch that has a minor impact on the operations of the stockbrokers.It suggested that stock exchanges rationalise the current structure of the financial disincentives and disseminate information on their websites about instances of technical glitches occuring in the trading system of stockbrokers.Growth in the number of investors creates an additional burden on the trading system of the stockbroker and, hence, adequate capacity planning is a prerequisite for stockbrokers to provide continuity of services to their clients, Sebi said.Brokers should do capacity planning for the entire trading infrastructure and monitor peak load in their trading applications, servers and network architecture, it said.

Mumbai: Retail investors are piling into fund of funds (FoF) schemes, lured by tax breaks, built-in diversification and the ease of tapping multiple fund managers through a single product. Data showed inflows of ₹28,067 crore in just the first five months of this financial year-nearly three times what came in during the whole of 2024-25.Investor interest in this category picked up after the budget, which stipulated that investors holding these schemes for over two years would be subject to a long-term capital gains tax (LTCG) of 12.5%, instead of being taxed at their income slab rate."These work well for investors who want tax efficiency, cannot decide on which scheme to buy, or when to enter and exit," says Madhu Nair, chief executive officer, Union Mutual Fund. 124058664Unlike a normal scheme that holds underlying stocks, bonds or commodities like gold or silver as per its mandate, a FoF is a strategy of holding a mix of mutual fund schemes."This diversification eliminates the need to constantly chase different fund managers, allowing investors to benefit from a broad range of investment approaches and expertise," says Kunal Valia, founder, Statlane - a Sebi-registered Research Analyst.Distributors point out that a very common problem among investors wanting to move from a mid-cap or a small-cap scheme to a large-cap is the tax outgo on account of capital gains, which leaves them with less money to invest. However, in a FoF structure, the fund manager can move from one scheme to another or alter allocation to schemes without tax implications for the investors.There are pure equity FoFs, thematic FoFs that invest in a mix of domestic equity fund schemes/themes or domestic ETFs. While some fund houses stick to their own schemes, a few also invest in schemes of different fund houses, thereby helping investors diversify fund house risk.Besides equity FoFs, there are asset allocator FoFs that invest in a mix of equity, fixed income, and commodities like gold and silver, with the allocation to each asset decided on the basis of the fund house's market view. There are also debt FoFs, such as the income plus arbitrage FoF, which cater to investors in fixed income and arbitrage.While FoFs offer flexibility, they come at a cost. Though FoFs invest in direct plans of the target mutual fund schemes, there is an additional layer of expense for the investor, leading to higher costs, than plain vanilla equity schemes.

NEW DELHI: Hyatt, ITC Hotels, Radisson Hotel Group, and Sarovar Hotels are among hotel chains choosing to keep their room tariffs unchanged and instead pass on the benefits of the reduced goods and services tax (GST) rate to travellers, according to hoteliers, and tariffs on booking and travel platforms on Monday.The Centre has cut the GST rate on rooms costing up to Rs 7,500 per night to 5% (without input tax credit) with effect from Monday, from 12% with input tax credit earlier. A room at the Hyatt Centric Candolim in Goa will cost Rs 5,670 on Tuesday, after adding 5% GST rate, per rates published on a popular travel platform, while Fortune Resort, Benaulim, Goa is charging Rs 4,463, after adding 5% GST for same date."There is no change in our room rates, and we have applied the 5% GST rate on rooms priced up to Rs 7,500 from Monday," said Ajay Bakaya, chairman of Sarovar Hotels and director at Louvre Hotels India. "Out of 140 hotels, about 80 hotels spanning over 5,000 rooms would be priced in this category in our portfolio. I think it's a good move, and we need to look at the benefits from a customers' perspective as well."