In this week's wrapup, we talk about NBFCs and their dirty secret, Mickey Mouse, innovation at Indian companies and more.

For the markets edition this week, we talked about the meteoric rise and fall of the Ebix group. Click here to read it.

Meanwhile, here’s a recap of what we wrote over the week.

Will Disney lose Mickey Mouse?

When the clock strikes midnight and takes us into 2024, Disney’s Mickey Mouse will lose its copyright protection. This means that anyone can soon freely use Mickey Mouse’s character in their content without Disney’s permission. So we wrote a story on what this actually means. You can read it here.

Indian companies have an innovation problem

A couple of days ago the Business Standard indicated that Indian companies aren’t spending enough on Research & Development (R&D). Even the top 500 biggest companies spent a measly 0.3% of their net sales on it. So we did a deep dive into what may be happening in our Tuesday’s story here.

The Suez Canal boycott?!

12% of international trade happens through a trade route called the Suez Canal. This was an engineering marvel built in the 19th century. It cut through the Egyptian desert and connected the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. So it drastically reduced travel time between two countries engaged in trade. But ships are boycotting the Suez Canal now. They’re looking for alternatives. So we wrote a story on what’s happening. Click here to read it.

RBI exposes a dirty NBFC secret!!!

Last week the RBI issued some new orders to NBFCs (Non Banking Financial Companies) and other financial entities that it regulates. It simply put some conditions in place if these entities wanted to invest in Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs). If you’re unfamiliar with AIFs, they are SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) regulated funds that accept only a minimum of ₹1 crore as investment from really rich individuals or other firms. They pool these crores together and then invest in places like the stock markets, bonds and even real estate projects.

See, NBFCs earlier used AIFs as a way to give out new loans indirectly to struggling borrowers to help them repay their old loans. It helped prevent bad loans from showing up in the NBFC’s books. But the RBI’s new diktat may have come as a blow to these NBFCs as it could put a lid on this practice. Here’s our story about it.

Is the Apple Watch just a sly copycat?

Masimo, a relatively small medical corporation just won a patent infringement case against tech giant Apple. It claimed that Apple copied its blood oxygen measurement technology. And turns out that part of it may be true. So we wrote a story on what may have transpired. You can read it here.

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We hope you enjoyed the weekly wrapup. Have a great weekend!

Until then…

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