e-commerce
The Warner Bros-Netflix-Paramount scrap: The real winners
NEW YORK: In the high-stakes poker game for Warner Bros Discovery, there’s one guaranteed winner: the bankers. While Netflix and Paramount Skydance slug it out over the media giant’s carcass, JPMorgan and Allen & Company are already counting their chips—a cool $90 million each, win or lose.
It’s the ultimate hedge. No matter which suitor carries Warner Bros Discovery down the aisle, the investment banks walk away with bulging pockets. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.
JPMorgan has been particularly busy feathering its nest. The bank pocketed roughly $189 million in fees over the past two years for “financial advisory and other services”—a wonderfully vague phrase that covers everything from strategic counsel to arranging a whopping $17.5 billion bridge loan. That loan, incidentally, holds the dubious honour of being Wall Street’s largest-ever non-investment-grade bridge facility. Warner Bros Discovery used it to buy back about half its bonds at a discount, part of a cunning plan to split itself in two.
For over two years, JPMorgan boffins huddled with Warner Bros Discovery executives, war-gaming merger-and-acquisition scenarios. The grand result? A plan to carve the company into separate entities—streaming and studios on one side, legacy assets on the other.
Now Netflix has upped the ante this week with a sweetened bid for the streaming and studio bits, whilst Paramount Skydance’s tender offer for the whole enchilada closes on Wednesday. Investors are glued to their screens, waiting to see who blinks first.
But the real drama? That’s already been written. Whatever happens next, the bankers have already secured their happy ending.
e-commerce
Flipkart cuts around 300 jobs in annual performance review
E-commerce giant trims ~1.5 per cent of workforce as IPO preparations continue.
MUMBAI: Flipkart just gave performance the pink slip because when the annual review bell rings, even the biggest cart sometimes needs to lighten its load. Flipkart has let go of approximately 300 employees as part of its annual performance management cycle, Moneycontrol reported on 7 March 2026, citing people familiar with the matter. The exits represent roughly 1.5 per cent of the company’s total workforce of around 20,000 people across its businesses.
The move follows Flipkart’s standard practice of asking employees placed in lower performance bands to leave during yearly reviews, a process the company has carried out periodically in recent years. A similar exercise in early 2024 saw around 1,000 employees (nearly 5 per cent of the workforce) exit.
The latest round comes amid Flipkart’s continued push for operational efficiency and cost discipline, mirroring broader trends across the Indian startup ecosystem where funding slowdowns have shifted focus toward profitability.
The development also arrives as Flipkart advances preparations for a potential domestic IPO. The company has held early discussions with investment banks including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Kotak Mahindra Capital to explore feasibility. Industry sources indicate a possible listing timeline of late 2026 or early 2027, though the final size and schedule remain undecided.
In December 2025, Flipkart received National Company Law Tribunal approval to shift its holding company domicile from Singapore back to India. a key regulatory step that simplifies the group structure ahead of a public market debut.
Controlled by Walmart, Flipkart remains one of India’s largest e-commerce platforms, locked in fierce competition with Amazon. In a market where every rupee counts and every headcount is scrutinised, the latest cuts aren’t just housekeeping, they’re part of a bigger balancing act between growth ambitions and the road to listing.
