Top Headlines: Reliance Jio 5G trials today, Musk-Twitter deal, and more

Advancing its 5G launch, Reliance Jio will start a beta trial of the service in four cities on Wednesday, offering select customers unlimited data with up to 1 Gbps speed. Elon Musk’s shock proposal to proceed with his acquisition of Twitter Inc. for the original offer price poses a headache at the worst possible time for Wall Street banks already struggling to offload billions of dollars in buyout debt. Read more on these in our top headlines.

Reliance Jio to start beta trial of 5G services in 4 cities today

Advancing its 5G launch, Reliance Jio will start a beta trial of the service in four cities on Wednesday, offering select customers unlimited data with up to 1 Gbps speed. Jio was scheduled to go live with 5G on Diwali. The Jio trial will be held in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Varanasi for Jio users on invitation and extended to other cities progressively. Read more

Musk-Twitter deal revives $12.5 billion headache for Wall Street banks

Elon Musk’s shock proposal to proceed with his acquisition of Twitter Inc. for the original offer price poses a headache at the worst possible time for Wall Street banks already struggling to offload billions of dollars in buyout debt they committed to in better times. After months of legal drama in an attempt to back out of the deal, billionaire Musk is now willing to buy the social-media giant for $54.20 a share. Read more

Weak rural demand drags down FMCG sales in September, shows data

Feeble demand in rural areas of the country has affected sales of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in September as compared to August, which saw heavy stocking ahead of the festival season, according to the data of Bizom, a retail intelligence platform. Sales in rural India fell 14.3 per cent while urban sales growth stood at 1.1 per cent in September as compared to the previous month. Read more

Results preview: Margin woes may not ease for IT services companies

Alarm bells are already ringing for the IT sector. Earlier a fear of recession was impacting the sentiment and now questions are being raised if the crisis in Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank is another Lehman Brothers situation. Hence, management commentaries on demand in the second half of FY23 will be closely looked into. Read more

CCI gives conditional nod to Zee-Sony merger, formal order awaited

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Tuesday granted conditional approval to the proposed merger of Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEEL) with Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) India. A statement from Zee said that CCI had granted the approval in Phase 1 after evaluating the official legal and economic submissions made by the company. Read more

Musk's Twitter deal has employees asking: Should I stay or should I go?

When news first broke Tuesday morning that Elon Musk was again interested in acquiring Twitter Inc. for $44 billion, most employees of the social network were sitting through an hourslong 2023 strategy presentation. Presenters from internal groups like the product and revenue teams didn’t officially discuss the development, or even acknowledge that Musk was back on board. Read more