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Correction - Pru actually only holds a 22% stake in ICICI-Pru, therefore India accounts for roughly 11% of total revenue.

Found revenue numbers of US$5.4bn for ICICI-Pru in 2026. Pru have (had) a 49% stake, so they are getting about US2.6bn revenue from India. Overall Pru revenue (2025) was about US11bn. On this basis India accounts for approximately 24% of Pru revenue, so it is actually very significant, certainly more than I realized.

Suspect India is currently not that significant, relative to the rest of the business, but definitely huge potential. Things are happening in China - crackdown on Chinese individuals investing in stocks abroad, a complete ban in fact - they have 2 years to sell up. Could be negative for Pru, but more likely positive (?) since the restrictions don't currently apply in Hong Kong, and Pru is listed there anyway.

If no ramping is needed then stop it. 162 messages in the last 30 days. Ramp ramp ramp ramp ramp - ineffective and antisocial.

Turns out shorters were wrong again, and one of them has given up, completely closing their position. Expensive mistake, and avoidable simply by looking at the track record of BMY management. Far better balanced company than a few years ago, growing nicely.

'African' proverb I just invented says: bumpy road doesn't necessarily lead to a cliff, it can also head up a mountain.

btw, what's a Mareket? Some kind of parrot?

Good analysis Maddox, that is the REAL reason behind the increase in debt - it makes absolute business sense to borrow to achieve such spectacular growth, and it is what any sensible growth investor should be searching for. The attribution of debt to buybacks instead, and to buyback totals which don't synch to the time period concerned is silly and shows a complete misunderstanding of both the accounts, the buyback program, the overall strategy and the positive current positioning within that strategy. The market is not reacting to lazy journalists, however, it still appears to be frightened by the AI hype - results like this make those fears look rather gormless.

Aliance News: "its GBP300 million share buyback programme is "well underway" with the total value of buybacks announced in the first half GBP600 million."

ShareCast news: "Net debt, however, swelled to £1.50bn from £0.98bn the year before, partly attributable to £353m being spent on share buybacks"

The reality is that the Sage buyback program was extended six days ago: the £400m limit which has been in place since 20 November 2024 will now be followed by an additional £200m to be spent once the original amount has been spent. Adding the two together makes £600m, but there doesn't seem much point in that calculation, because neither the individual numbers nor the sum of them has any specific applicability to the period being reported upon (October 2025 - March 2026) . Both reports, therefore, seem ignorant and misleading.

Further digging reveals that 360 One acquired a 15% stake in Bharti Life Assurance last year, held through their funds. So perhaps their only involvement is to sell some, or all, of their stake to the Pru at a profit. Presumably Bharti want the partnership in order to access Pru's expertise in financial services, with possible implications for their rollout of mobile financial services on their Airtel phone networks in India and Africa. Their Mobile Money business was supposed to be spun-off from Airtel Africa in the first half of this year, via IPO, but was recently pushed into the second half.

Bharti have agreed to sell a majority holding in Bharti Life Insurance to Prudential PLC, subject to regulatory approval. This is a big move for Prudential, it shifts their focus in India from their longstanding minority partnership with ICICI-Pru to a new (potential) partnership with Bharti Airtel and other companies in the group. The implications for Mobile Money are unclear, but it feels like related news because it is in the financial services sector rather than telecoms.

It looks like the Bharti operation is private, and therefore opaque, but 360 One is a listed asset manager. ICICI-Pru has about $33Bn assets under management, whereas 360 One has $75Bn, presumably some of it managed on behalf of Bharti life (?).

So it does seem Prudential are ditching the minority stake in ICICI-Pru and hoping to get approval to do their own thing, both with Bharti Life and Prudential HCL.

Bharti group have been having a more widespread shakeup. They recently postponed the spin-off of Mobile Money (a financial company operated by Airtel Africa) until the second half of the year, and also increased their majority stake in Airtel Africa.

Funny time to tell people they've "go it wrong", as the price slides and slides. Don't remember that analysis when the price shot up. The nature of the deal was known then, it is the price of it which caused both the short term market reaction and the long term reduction in trust. Being a swap doesn't make any difference to that, and If it is, as you claim, essentially meaningless, then why do it at all? It would have been perfectly possible to swap at the market price.

I suppose the question has to be, how does it benefit AAF to do an internal swap at a discount? The market is seeing that the major shareholders will slant the management of this business to suit their private interests, rather than act on a normal business basis. Put another way, some shareholders are "more equal" than others, but the level of inequality is unstated, unknowable and apparently unethical. The market makers who set the price certainly did not expect this, and they certainly don't like it. Pretty unnecessary and unwise to sour the market this way, imo.

Never seen that before, and nobody predicted it. Guess that's what can happen when one shareholder has controlling interests over both companies. Surprised Athens thinks there is "no way" it could happen again. This precedent surely shows it can? I think the SP will be damaged long term by this, it's an overhanging threat you wouldn't normally have to factor in, and surprisingly greedy and unfair behavior by the Bhartis - wonder if Mobile Money IPO will suffer as a result too?

Shorting of BMY continues to rise. Why? The two reasons I have seen are that earnings declined dramatically last year, and that analysts forecasts are for lower growth than the overall market for the next 3 years. Those sound like worrying facts ... but. Last years decline was from an exceptional year. Everybody recognized it as such. Surely comparing against an outlier is simply bad analysis? Compare last year with other prior years and suddenly it looks much better, indicating underlying strong growth - at the very least you'd think a sensible analyst would see a balance in that, short term bad but long term (the more important indicator) good. But they don't even see it as neutral, portraying it instead as just a negative . With regards to analysts forecasts, well they have been consistently wrong about Bloomsbury for years, haven't they? That seems like an unreliable source. Given the regular positive surprises they did not foresee over the last few years, you would think they would be more cautious, or arguably more realistic, about the future.

Despite consistent success in choosing and promoting authors, and devising and executing a successful strategy, despite things like continuing to pay dividends during the pandemic, analysts don't seem to recognize the abilities and resourcefulness of BMY management. They consistently underestimate this factor.

So, maybe the shorters and analysts WILL be proved right, but let's face it, they've been wrong before: more like gamblers than investors, and inconsistent, capable of turning 180 degrees instantly, moving on without even an "oops!".

This article from a Kenyan news blog has a good roundup of recent AAF activity, with the focus on Kenya but including the 14 countries AAF operates in. The deals with Starlink show it reaching and competing in new areas within that territory. The impression is that they are not only growing from the massive, and rapidly increasing, young population, many new to services like basic banking, or even phones, but they are also aggressively going after competitors customers. At the same time, they are cutting infrastructure costs by sharing with those same rivals! Very intelligent business moves, imo. https://tech-ish.com/2026/05/09/african-telcos-infrastructure-sharing-kenya/

The meeting is probably happening now. It's past 5pm in India. It seems likely that they are reviewing the whole complicated structure of companies in the Bharti group, and maybe also the various financial vehicles through which family members hold shares in them. I agree, surely more likely to vote yes than no, especially with a specific target amount already announced. Presumably confirmation would be even more positive than the previous "maybe" announcement, so fingers crossed for another all time high (followed by the inevitable profit taking!).

One rationale for increasing the holding to 78% could be that it's a stepping stone towards 100%, bringing the phone operations back in house while spinning off the finance company? A completely independent finance company would potentially have an even bigger addressable market.

When the decision is announced, tomorrow or soon after, we can probably expect another big movement, but which way... market seems to be betting they reject (but maybe just a natural correction or profit taking). It would be odd to announce a potential decision then the decision is: do nothing?

Can anyone suggest a rationale for this evaluation? Perhaps they just see extraordinary value here, because what else does 78% ownership give you that 62% doesn't? Also, isn't it a bit strange to be floating one part of the company while buying back another part? I know they are technically separate entities, but they are all ultimately owned by the same family. Anyone, congrats to holders, seems like these shares are going to be harder to get hold of, and you couldn't ask for a better vote of confidence from the major shareholder.