iWorld
Netflix to raise $2 bn for original content
MUMBAI: American media services provider, Netflix, is planning to raise an additional $2 billion through bond offering. Netflix will borrow the amount in order to pay for the exclusive series and movies that its management credits for helping its video streaming service.
With the 2013 release of House of Cards, the company expanded into original programming and since then the company has been spending more money than its business generates.
According to AP, Netflix is expected to burn through $3 billion this year. The additional $2 billion will be raised through bond offering which will be lopped onto its existing debt of $11.8 billion. That also includes another $1.9 billion debt offering that Netflix completed earlier this year.
Since September 2013, Netflix has witnessed a growth of nearly 100 million subscribers. 7 million subscribers joined Netflix in the past quarter. By the end of this year, the company foresees to add another 9.4 million subscribers.
Netflix has been the clear favourite of investors as they have been betting on the company to win. The world’s leading subscription service company’s stock is worth seven times more than it was five years ago, giving the company a current market value of $146 billion.
iWorld
Akhil Gupta retires as Bharti Enterprises vice chairman after three decades
The man who outsourced Airtel’s network and built Indus Towers leaves behind a telecom industry transformed
NEW DELHI: He was not the most visible face of Bharti. He was, by most accounts, the most consequential one. Akhil Gupta, known within the group simply as AKG, has retired as vice chairman of Bharti Enterprises with effect from March 31st, 2026, closing a chapter that stretched across more than three decades and reshaped Indian telecoms in ways still felt today.
Gupta was there at the beginning, part of the core leadership team that steered Bharti Airtel from a scrappy domestic operator into one of the world’s largest telecom and digital services companies. But it is two decisions in particular that cement his legacy. The first was persuading the industry that a telecom company need not own its own network. His outsourcing partnerships with IBM and Ericsson, considered eccentric at the time, stripped out capital costs and sharpened Airtel’s competitive edge. The model was subsequently copied across the global industry. The second was the creation of Indus Towers, now one of the largest tower companies in the world.
Both initiatives were studied as case material at Harvard Business School, where Gupta himself had studied. A chartered accountant by training and a dealmaker by instinct, he accumulated industry accolades across his career without ever particularly courting the limelight.
Bharti Enterprises, announcing the retirement on LinkedIn, credited Gupta with building the foundation of the group’s success and driving innovation, partnerships and long-term value creation.
The tributes are deserved. Gupta did not just help build Airtel. In many respects, he helped invent the playbook that modern telecoms runs on.
