Kollywood actor Nayanthara and others have invested in Chai Waale, a native beverage brand in Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) industry, which has announced physical store expansion by opening 35 fully functioning stores by the next year.

Chai Waale has bagged funding worth Rs 5 crore from marquee angel investors — both existing and new — in this round of fundraising. Besides the leading actor, it has an illustrious list of angel investors include Sunil Sethia, Sunil Kumar Singhvi, Manish Mardia, UNI-M Network, a Mumbai-based angel network and director Vignesh Shivan.

“About 80% of the current funding will be utilised in physical store expansion. We aim to have 35 fully functioning stores by the next year,” its founder Vidur Maheswari said.

Tata Sons is buying Tejas Networks, a publicly listed company offering data networking products to telecom operators and internet service providers for Rs 2,923 crore, to bolster its enterprise telecom play. According to the contours of the deal, Tata Sons is buying 72% in Tejas by subscribing to preferential shares and warrants besides acquiring shares from founders and public shareholders. It is purchasing Tejas shares at Rs 258 apiece, which is at a premium to its Thursday’s closing price of Rs 246 on the BSE.

After exiting the wireless services space in 2019 by transferring the business to Bharti Airtel, Tata Sons has been focusing on providing telecom services to enterprise customers. Tejas is Tata Sons’s first major deal in telecom after the exit from consumer mobile business. Currently, its telecom and connected interests are spread across Tata Communications, Nelco and Tata Teleservices.

Sanofi India has announced the sale of its nutraceuticals’ business to Mumbai-based Universal Nutriscience for Rs 587 crore. The divestment was approved by the company’s board on Wednesday.

The decision will help Sanofi to focus on its growth pillars, while allowing the nutraceuticals business to have more opportunities for expansion in an organisation where it will have a better strategic fit, the company said in a statement. Universal Nutriscience is a partnership between private equity firm Kedaara Capital and nutraceutical company, Universal Medicare.

Subject to fulfilment of conditions, the deal is expected to close within the next three months. Along with the brands, “related business assets and liabilities including contracts, intellectual property rights, inventory and all employees associated with this business will transition to Universal Nutriscience”, the company added.

Weeks after UK-based Cairn Energy secured a French court order to seize about 20 Indian government properties worth Rs 177 crore in Paris, the government on Tuesday confirmed the development and said it has roped in an international law firm to handle the enforcement proceedings.

"An order has been passed by a French Court freezing certain Indian Government properties in the case pertaining to Cairn Energy," minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary told Rajya Sabha in a written reply. "For handling enforcement proceedings, an international law firm, with relevant experience, has been engaged. In consultation with its counsel team, the government is taking all appropriate legal steps to protect its interest."

Fugitive Indian businessman Vijay Mallya was declared bankrupt on Monday by the Insolvency and Companies Court of the London high court. Though the order takes effect immediately, he has the option to seek permission to appeal from a higher court.

"There is no evidence he will go back to India to face trial so I find insufficient evidence he will pay the debt in full in a reasonable period of time. I shall adjudicate Dr Mallya bankrupt," chief Insolvency and Companies Court (ICC) judge Briggs declared late Monday afternoon.

The 65-year-old chairman of UB Group, who lost all his court battles against extradition to India in May 2020 but has still not returned, now has to hand over all his assets, as well as his bank and credit cards to a bankruptcy trustee who will investigate his affairs and establish his true assets and liabilities, with a view to selling relevant assets and repaying creditors. The person declared bankrupt must cooperate with the trustee. All his bank accounts will now be frozen, apart from money to buy essentials. He is banned from acting as a director of a company or creating a company without the court’s permission or borrowing more than £500 without declaring he is bankrupt. His name will appear on the Individual Insolvency Register where billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal’s brother Pramod Mittal, too, is listed.