TMS Ep594: Disney at loss, non-cricket sports in 2023, markets, Krutrim

After months of build-up, Reliance Industries and Walt Disney have reportedly entered into a non-binding agreement. The plan is to merge Indian operations which will, in turn, create India’s largest media and entertainment empire -- challenging the might of Sony, Zee, Amazon Prime and Netflix. But this merger, in a way, also suggests that Disney failed to crack the Indian market. But why? 

Both the firms are reportedly expecting to wrap-up the deal at the beginning of next year. Moving on, this year was good for Indian sports too. And we are not talking about cricket here. Other sports too had their day in the sun. With notable performances in the Asian Games, Fide Chess Championship and some other events, new talents continued to attract the attention of the country. And that of the brand too. 

This year turned out to be good for the equity markets too. It delivered strong performance in 2023 as they recovered from the recession fears that fed into the October 2022 trough. This gave way for developed markets, such as the US, to deliver up to 43% returns this year! However, as we enter 2024, will developed markets continue to attract investors’ money? Or will emerging markets stage an outperformance? 

OLA Electric IPO is also going to hit the primary market next year. Its CEO Bhavish Aggarwal is upbeat about it. Meanwhile, Ola is also excited about a new AI initiative called Krutrim. It is a home-grown large language model. Listen to this episode of the podcast for answers.