The fashion group, which owns Sports Direct and Flannels, has bought 2.5m new shares in Hugo Boss, taking its total stake up to 30.28 per cent and crossing the mandatory bid threshold under German takeover rules

Frasers Group has increased its stake in Hugo Boss beyond the threshold that compels it to make an offer for the entire business, intensifying pressure on the German fashion house to accept its £1.7bn proposal.

The fashion retailer, which owns Sports Direct and Flannels, announced on Tuesday that it had acquired 2.5m additional shares in Hugo Boss, lifting its total holding to 30.28 per cent. Under German takeover regulations, a shareholder must launch a bid for the whole company once their stake reaches the 30 per cent threshold.

Frasers said it was “pleased to confirm that it has exceeded the mandatory bid threshold,” adding that its existing bid “remains open for shareholders to accept”, City AM reported. The group, established by billionaire Mike Ashley, put forward a €38 per share offer for Hugo Boss last month, placing a value of nearly €2bn on the fashion brand.

However, Hugo Boss has urged its investors to reject this “inadequate bid”. The offer is set to expire on Monday 27 July. FTSE 250-listed Frasers Group already held approximately 26 per cent of Hugo Boss when it launched its bid last month.

The €38-per-share proposal raised questions amongst analysts as it represented merely a four per cent premium on Hugo Boss’ share price at the time of the offer. Shares in the German fashion house have subsequently risen above €38, having jumped more than nine per cent on the day Frasers submitted its offer.

Earlier this month, members of Hugo Boss’s management and supervisory board declared they “unanimously recommend that shareholders do not accept” the offer. Following a “comprehensive and independent review process”, the German fashion house concluded that the proposal would be “inadequate from a financial point of view”.

The company said it sought advice from bankers at the Bank of America and Goldman Sachs before determining that the offer price failed to reflect either the “standalone value” of Hugo Boss “nor its medium to long-term value creation potential”.

Last week, Frasers disclosed that its string of takeover bids — which included a hostile approach for Australian footwear retailer Accent — is driving its recovery. The group’s stakes in Hugo Boss and Accent contributed £50m to adjusted profit over the past year, it confirmed.

The FTSE 250 company recorded an eight per cent rise in revenue to £5.3bn for the year ending April, while pre-tax profit surged by more than a third to £528m.

Jones, who was also previously chief secretary to the Treasury, wrote on X that the Digital ID programme was unfunded.

While praising the VAT cut as “good”, he said “the government will have to set out how it will pay for its new policies at the budget”.

Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride also criticised the use of the Digital ID budget to fund the VAT cut.

“The cuts to the Digital ID card budget are not real because the money was never provided in the first place.

“We are only one day in and already its smoke and mirrors on the public finances.”

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told BBC Breakfast: “We’re not saying it’s everything but it will give people breathing space.”

He said the announcement was “a statement of priorities from the new administration”.

Household energy prices rose by 13% for millions of people in England, Scotland and Wales at the start of July, under regulator Ofgem’s price cap.

Price rises were driven by the higher cost of gas, but have a relatively limited impact owing to warm weather and lower energy use during the summer months.

However, higher energy prices caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has constrained global supplies of oil and liquified natural gas, are likely to persist into the winter, according to analysts.

The VAT cut only applies to the current financial year — any decision to keep it in future years would have to be made in a Budget.

The government expects it will lower inflation by 0.1 percentage points.

In his first speech as the UK’s prime minister, Burnham vowed to provide “breathing space” for households struggling with the cost of living.

On Tuesday, he said the VAT cut would “put more money in people’s pockets”.

The VAT cut is the second intervention on energy bills by the government in six months.

Former chancellor Rachel Reeves removed one levy and shifted others onto general taxation to lower bills in April.

Burnham’s new cabinet is due to meet for the first time at lunchtime on Tuesday.

The End Fuel Poverty Coalition welcomed the reduction, but said it “does not address the scale of what households are facing”.

Simon Francis, the group’s co-ordinator, said Burnham’s government must “go even further” with targeted support for those most in need.

He added: “This breathing space is also not a cure. The only way to bring bills down for good is to change how they are set.”

Shares of leading private lender HDFC Bank fell 1.5% to Rs 766 on Tuesday, extending their decline to over 6% in two sessions, after the bank reported a 5% YoY increase in standalone net profit for the April-June quarter of FY27.

The bank posted a standalone net profit of Rs 19,060 crore for the quarter, compared with Rs 18,155 crore in the corresponding period last year. Net interest income (NII), which reflects the difference between interest earned and interest paid, increased 7% YoY to Rs 33,534 crore from Rs 31,438 crore a year earlier.

Despite the fall, analysts remain bullish on HDFC Bank shares.

Jefferies on HDFC Bank share price

Jefferies maintained its ‘Buy’ call on HDFC Bank shares with a target price of Rs 1,050 (35% upside) apiece. HDFC Bank remains one of the international brokerage’s top picks, while it noted that the company’s June quarter earnings were in-line with estimates, as a slight miss on NII was offset by lower opex and credit cost. The bank’s desire to participate in corp lending lifted loan growth to 16% YoY, but dragged NIMs by 12 bps QoQ, limiting NII growth to 7%, Nomura said, adding that slower growth in opex (slow branch/staff growth) and lower credit costs (low slippages) aided profits.

“We tweak earnings estimates for FY27 and FY29. Improvement in margins should aid earnings that should grow at 15% CAGR in PBT (ex-treasury/ one-offs) over FY26-29 with ROE of 13% in FY27. Valuations at 1.8x FY27 adjusted PB and 14x PE are attractive,” Jefferies further said.
Also read | HDFC Bank Q1 Results: Net profit rises 5% YoY to Rs 19,060 crore, NII up 7%

Nomura on HDFC Bank share price

Nomura also has a ‘Buy’ call on HDFC Bank shares, with a target price of Rs 950 apiece, implying nearly 22% upside potential. The international brokerage noted that the bank reported a largely in-line Q1 FY27 performance.
“We raise our FY27F loan/deposit growth estimates to 16%/17% (from 13%/15%). FY27-28F EPS estimates are largely unchanged, as lower top-line is offset by lower provisions and opex. On the FCNR(B) scheme, management expects to gain a handsome market share, though it did not disclose any quantum. Leadership continuity and FCNR execution remain key near-term monitorables, in our view,” it added.

Motilal Oswal on HDFC Bank

Motilal Oswal has reiterated its Buy rating on HDFC Bank with a target price of Rs 1,050, implying an upside of around 35%. The brokerage said the bank reported a largely in-line quarter, supported by healthy business growth and lower provisions, although net interest margin (NIM) remained the key disappointment, contracting 12 basis points QoQ to 3.26%. Loan growth was led by the SME and corporate segments, while retail lending remained relatively subdued.

It believes NIM has meaningful room for improvement as Rs 400-500 billion of high-cost borrowings mature over the next two years, lowering funding costs and supporting profitability. Factoring this in, Motilal Oswal has cut its FY27 and FY28 earnings estimates by 2% each and expects HDFC Bank to deliver an FY28E RoA/RoE of 1.84%/14.7%.

JM Financial on HDFC Bank stock price

JM Financial has maintained its Add rating on HDFC Bank with a revised target price of Rs 900, implying an upside of around 16%. The brokerage said the bank’s liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) of 115% and a credit-deposit ratio of around 96% limit its ability to accelerate loan growth. As a result, loan growth has been driven by the wholesale portfolio, which has weighed on net interest margins (NIM).

Read more: Q1 earnings begin on a strong note as banks fuel double-digit growth
However, JM Financial remains constructive on the bank’s medium-term margin outlook, expecting NIM to improve as high-cost borrowings gradually run off. It also believes HDFC Bank’s strong asset quality will keep credit costs under control. The brokerage expects the bank to deliver 15% loan CAGR and 14% EPS CAGR over FY26-28E, translating into an average RoA of 1.8% and RoE of 14% over FY27-28E.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Topps announced Monday that it will release a one-of-one trading card featuring the widely circulated photograph of Argentina’s Lionel Messi holding a young Lamine Yamal, an image that became a viral sensation throughout this year’s World Cup as the two players’ paths eventually crossed on soccer’s biggest stage.

The card, which the company confirmed via a post on X, will be inserted into boxes of Topps Stadium Club UCC later this year. “The iconic Messi & Yamal photoshoot is going on a 1-of-1 trading card,” Topps wrote in its announcement, sharing an image of the card alongside the post.

A photo that predates Yamal’s rise to stardom

The photograph at the center of the card dates back to a period when Yamal, now a 19-year-old rising star at FC Barcelona, was still an infant, and Messi was already established as one of the sport’s most decorated players during his own time with the Catalan club, where he became a global star and won numerous trophies. The original photo session came about through a fundraising initiative for UNICEF, during which Messi took part in the campaign and ended up holding the child who would, nearly two decades later, become one of the faces of the sport’s next generation.

A meeting nearly two decades in the making

The renewed attention around the photograph stems directly from Sunday’s World Cup final, in which Yamal and Spain defeated Messi and Argentina 1-0 in extra time, marking the first time the two players faced each other at the international level. The moment carried added symbolic weight given the earlier photograph, transforming what had once been a charity photo op into what many viewed as a full-circle moment linking one generation of soccer’s biggest stars to the next.

Speaking ahead of Sunday’s final, Messi reflected on the unlikely nature of the connection between the old photograph and the current tournament. “That photo is incredible,” Messi said Friday. “I took a picture with him when he was a baby. The fact that we’re both playing in the World Cup now is crazy.”

A potential changing of the guard

Sunday’s final carried broader significance beyond the individual result, with many observers describing the match as a symbolic passing of the torch within international soccer. At 39, Messi is widely believed to have played in his final World Cup, while the 19-year-old Yamal, appearing in his first, is increasingly viewed as a central figure in the sport’s next era.

Both players logged heavy workloads throughout the tournament, each appearing in eight matches across the six-week competition. Following the World Cup’s conclusion, both are expected to take time off before returning to their respective club and league commitments. Yamal is set to resume training ahead of the 2026-27 La Liga season with Barcelona, while Messi will rejoin Major League Soccer club Inter Miami CF as the team resumes its league schedule following the break for the FIFA tournament.

Part of a broader wave of World Cup memorabilia interest

Topps’ announcement of the Messi and Yamal card arrives amid a broader surge of interest in collectibles and memorabilia tied to this year’s tournament, one of the most closely watched and heavily attended World Cups in the competition’s history. The specific choice to commemorate the Messi-Yamal photograph as a one-of-one card, the rarest possible designation in trading card production, reflects the significance collectors and the broader soccer community have placed on the image following its resurfacing throughout the tournament’s buildup and eventual final.

A tournament full of storylines beyond the pitch

The Messi-Yamal card announcement adds to a wide range of storylines that emerged from Sunday’s final and its aftermath. Spain’s players returned home to a jubilant welcome in Madrid, where hundreds of thousands of fans gathered to celebrate the team’s second World Cup title with an open-top bus parade through the city. Messi, meanwhile, was reported to be taking a brief hiatus from his club duties with Inter Miami following the emotional conclusion to his World Cup campaign, reflecting the toll of an extended and demanding tournament run for the Argentine captain.

FIFA has also confirmed it will investigate a clash between players that occurred following the conclusion of Sunday’s final, adding another layer of post-match scrutiny to a tournament that organizers have already described as one of the most significant in the competition’s history, both on and off the field.

With the Topps card set for release later this year as part of the Stadium Club UCC product line, collectors and fans are expected to closely watch for further details regarding the card’s exact release timing and any accompanying promotional rollout. In the meantime, the renewed attention surrounding the Messi-Yamal photograph is likely to remain one of the more enduring storylines from this year’s tournament, encapsulating both the emotional weight of Messi’s likely final World Cup appearance and the growing anticipation surrounding Yamal’s emergence as one of the sport’s next great stars.

Players looking for help with today’s NYT Connections puzzle can find hints, category breakdowns and the complete solution below for game #1136, released Tuesday, July 21, 2026.

Connections, published daily by The New York Times, challenges players to sort a grid of 16 words into four distinct groups of four, with each group sharing a hidden theme or category. The game presents an added layer of difficulty because individual words can often plausibly fit into more than one potential grouping, meaning players must identify the specific connection the puzzle’s creators intended rather than simply the most obvious pairing.

How Connections works

Each puzzle assigns its four groups a color, ranging from yellow, generally considered the most straightforward category, through green and blue, to purple, typically the most challenging and often built around wordplay, shared prefixes or suffixes, or more obscure thematic links. Players select four words they believe belong together and submit their guess, with the game confirming whether the selection is correct. Players are allowed up to four incorrect guesses before the puzzle ends, and the game will alert players when a guess is “one away” from being correct, offering a helpful nudge without fully revealing the intended grouping.

A new puzzle becomes available daily at midnight in each player’s local time zone, meaning solvers in different parts of the world are often working through the same puzzle at staggered times relative to one another.

Category hints for today’s puzzle

For players seeking guidance before jumping straight to the full answer, several outlets covering today’s puzzle offered spoiler-light hints for each of the four categories. The yellow group, generally the easiest of the four, centers on types of women’s clothing tops. The green group focuses on categories of software downloads. The blue group is built around core components involved in staging a musical theater production. The purple group, as is often the case, relies on a shared prefix, specifically words that form recognizable compound terms when combined with “tele.”

Today’s Connections answers

The full solution to Connections puzzle #1136 for July 21, 2026, breaks down as follows:

The yellow group, representing kinds of tops, consists of CROP, HALTER, TANK and TUBE, each of which commonly precedes or pairs with the word “top” to form a recognizable clothing item. Several solvers noted this category as the easiest entry point into today’s puzzle, given how directly and consistently each word connects to the shared “top” theme.

The green group, focused on software downloads, includes APP, DRIVER, EXTENSION and PLUGIN, four terms commonly used to describe different types of software components that users install to add or expand functionality on a computer or device.

The blue group, built around elements of a musical, consists of BOOK, LYRICS, MUSIC and ORCHESTRATION, each referring to a core structural component involved in the creation and staging of a musical theater production.

The purple group, the puzzle’s trickiest category, is built around the shared prefix “tele,” with GRAM, KINESIS, PROMPTER and VISION each combining with that prefix to form familiar compound words: telegram, telekinesis, teleprompter and television.

A tricky purple category, according to solvers

Coverage of today’s puzzle noted that the purple category, while conceptually straightforward once identified, proved to be an unusually satisfying “aha” moment for many players, given how the words GRAM, KINESIS, PROMPTER and VISION do not immediately suggest an obvious shared connection on their own. Several solvers highlighted that recognizing the “tele” prefix pattern, and specifically noting that the word “telegram” refers to a now largely obsolete form of communication, added a layer of enjoyable difficulty to an otherwise clean and well-constructed category.

About the Connections franchise

Connections first launched in June 2023 as part of The New York Times’ broader stable of daily word and logic games, following the success of Wordle, which the Times had acquired the previous year. Since its debut, Connections has grown into one of the publication’s most consistently popular daily offerings, available for free both on desktop browsers and through the New York Times Games mobile app.

The puzzle’s format, requiring players to think critically about overlapping category possibilities rather than simply matching obvious word pairs, has helped fuel its popularity among fans of daily brain-teaser games, with many players maintaining ongoing solving streaks and sharing their results, including how many mistakes they made along the way, across social media platforms.

Other daily puzzles from the Times

Players looking for additional daily word games beyond Connections can also find Wordle, the Times’ original viral word-guessing game, as well as Strands, a word-search-style puzzle built around a central hidden theme known as the “spangram.” Tuesday’s editions of both companion puzzles, Wordle #1858 and Strands #870, were also published alongside today’s Connections puzzle, giving solvers several additional options as part of their daily puzzle rotation.

With today’s Connections puzzle now solved, a new puzzle will become available at midnight local time Wednesday, continuing the game’s regular daily schedule. Players hoping to maintain their solving streaks, or simply looking for a quick daily mental challenge, can expect a fresh set of 16 words and four new hidden categories to sort through when tomorrow’s puzzle unlocks, regardless of how challenging or straightforward today’s “tele”-themed purple group proved to be for individual solvers.

The UK government borrowed slightly less than expected in June, according to official figures published as new prime minister Andy Burnham began setting out measures to cut living costs for households.

Borrowing – the difference between spending and income from taxes – was £16bn last month, £7.9bn lower than June last year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Separate figures also showed the unemployment rate was unchanged between March and May, with the ONS saying the labour market was “relatively steady”.

However while the borrowing figures were better than forecast the ONS said total debt remained near £3 trillion, which is close to the annual value of the entire UK economy.

Borrowing for June was slightly below the £16.3bn that had been predicted by the government’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said June’s slightly lower than expected borrowing figure was “a rare piece of good news” for the new prime minister and his new chancellor John Healey.

However, she added: “Overall, there’s no escaping the fact that the public finances are fragile and that there is limited scope for extra borrowing.”

So far in the current financial year, borrowing has reached a total of £57.6bn. While this is down £3.7bn from the same period last year, it is £2.7bn above the OBR’s forecast.

Burnham and Healey have both pledged to stick to former chancellor Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules on spending and borrowing.

Although the new prime minister said on Monday he would use “any flexibility within them” to help with policy changes.

Meanwhile, the latest survey of the labour market showed the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.9%.

Growth in regular earnings – which excludes bonuses – remained unchanged, rising at an annual pace of 3.4% in the March to may period.

However, the ONS noted that regular wage growth in the private sector fell below 3% for the first time since 2020.

Gregory said the latest data suggested the labour market was “still weak”, and as a result the Bank of England was likely to keep interest rates on hold at 3.75% when it meets next week.

Shares of Central Mine Planning & Design Institute (CMPDI) surged 6.90% to Rs 270.96 during Tuesday’s trading session after the Coal India subsidiary reported strong performance for the first quarter of FY27, driven by robust revenue growth and a sharp rise in profitability.

CMPDI reported an 18% year-on-year increase in revenue from operations to Rs 481.4 crore in Q1 FY27, compared with Rs 409.3 crore in the same quarter last year.

The company’s net profit witnessed a significant 54% YoY jump to Rs 116.3 crore, up from Rs 75.5 crore reported in the corresponding period of the previous year. Other income also rose 62% to Rs 22.7 crore from Rs 14.06 crore a year ago, further supporting the bottom-line growth.

Operational performance remained strong, with EBITDA rising 61.87% year-on-year to Rs 168 crore in Q1 FY27 from Rs 103.85 crore in the same period last year.

Dividend Announcement

Along with its quarterly results, CMPDI’s Board of Directors approved the first interim dividend for FY27 at Rs 1.05 per equity share on a face value of Rs 2 per share. The dividend was recommended by the Audit Committee, and the company has fixed Friday, July 24, 2026, as the record date to determine shareholder eligibility.

The payment of the first interim dividend for FY27 will be completed on or before August 19, 2026.

The company has also fixed Monday, August 10, 2026, as the record date for determining shareholder eligibility for the final dividend of Rs 1.06 per share for FY26, as recommended by the Board of Directors.

Stock Performance and Valuation

CMPDI shares have delivered strong momentum in recent months, gaining around 45% over the past three months. The stock currently commands a market capitalisation of approximately Rs 18,097 crore.
The company’s shares have traded between a 52-week high of Rs 283.69 and a 52-week low of Rs 150.10.On the valuation front, CMPDI is trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 28.55, while its price-to-sales ratio stands at 4.75 and price-to-book ratio at 7.97.

From a technical perspective, the stock’s 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) stands at 49.0, indicating a neutral trend. An RSI below 30 is generally considered to indicate oversold conditions, while a reading above 70 suggests an overbought zone.

With strong quarterly earnings, improved margins, and consistent shareholder returns through dividends, CMPDI continues to attract investor attention as one of the key companies within Coal India’s ecosystem.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)