Zydus Lifesciences on Tuesday announced its biggest-ever share buyback worth Rs 1,100 crore at a buyback price of Rs 1,150 per share, offering nearly a 10.5% premium over the stock’s previous closing price. Zydus Lifesciences’ board approved a plan to buy back up to 95.65 lakh shares, each with a face value of Re 1, representing 0.95% of the company’s paid-up equity share capital, for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 1,100 crore. The buyback will be conducted via the tender route. The record date to determine shareholders’ eligibility for the buyback has been fixed as May 29 (next Friday).

Asean’s unified capital market faces obstacles as member states resist sharing data, forex, and fiscal policies. DBS Bank’s Tan Chek Soon calls this the “biggest elephant in the room,” while IDEAS’ Rebecca Sta Maria advocates “baby steps” like Asean Business Entities for easier labour mobility.

Key Points

• Asean’s push for a unified regional capital market faces major obstacles, as member states remain reluctant to share control over data, foreign exchange, fiscal, and trade policies. DBS Bank’s Tan Chek Soon called this sovereignty issue “the biggest elephant in the room,” though he believes Asean’s talent pool can eventually overcome these challenges.
• A harmonised Asean capital market would make the region more attractive to global investors by functioning as a single investment bloc, improving capital allocation by connecting capital-rich markets like Singapore and Malaysia with high-growth economies like Indonesia seeking funding for listings.
• IDEAS’ Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria advocates “baby steps” toward regional integration, highlighting a proposal to designate firms as “Asean Business Entities,” allowing skilled employees to move freely across regional branches with reduced bureaucratic hurdles, serving as a pragmatic step toward broader labour mobility.

Barriers to Asean’s Unified Capital Market

The Challenge of Sovereignty: Asean’s vision of a unified regional capital market continues to face significant obstacles, primarily due to member states’ reluctance to relinquish control over data, foreign exchange policies, and fiscal regulations. DBS Bank’s head of investment banking coverage for Malaysia, Tan Chek Soon, described this as “the biggest elephant in the room.” Drawing parallels with the European Union, he noted that meaningful integration requires nations to surrender certain sovereign authorities — a politically sensitive trade-off that Asean members have yet to fully embrace.

The Case for Integration: Despite these challenges, Tan remains optimistic about the region’s potential. He argued that a harmonised capital market — spanning equities, bond settlements, and regulatory disclosures — would make Asean significantly more attractive to global investors by positioning the region as a unified investment bloc. He further highlighted the opportunity to improve capital allocation, enabling capital-rich markets like Singapore and Malaysia to fund high-growth economies such as Indonesia, where promising companies struggle due to relatively smaller domestic markets.

Pragmatic Steps Toward Regional Integration

Labour Mobility as a Starting Point: Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs director Tan Sri Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria advocated for practical “baby steps” rather than sweeping reforms. She highlighted a proposal by the Asean Business Advisory Council to designate selected firms as “Asean Business Entities” (ABEs), granting them the ability to move skilled employees across regional branches with greater ease, reducing bureaucratic hurdles related to work permits and temporary transfers.

Incremental Progress Over Ambitious Overhauls: Rebecca acknowledged that a European-style Schengen Agreement for free movement remains a distant goal for Asean. However, she emphasised that targeted measures — such as allowing temporary intra-company staff movement of up to three months — represent meaningful progress. These incremental reforms, while modest, provide the business community with a realistic pathway toward deeper regional integration without requiring immediate political consensus on broader sovereignty issues.

Source : Data sovereignty concerns stall Asean capital market unity — DBS

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Waymo is temporarily halting freeway operations for its robotaxi service in several U.S. markets as the company works to address performance issues in construction zones, FOX Business has learned.

The Alphabet-owned company confirmed Thursday that it was pausing freeway operations while updating its software.

“Safety is Waymo’s top priority, both for our riders and everyone we share the road with,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business. “We have temporarily paused freeway operations, as we work to integrate recent technical learnings into our software and expect to resume these routes soon.” 

Waymo said the pause affects only freeway driving and that surface street operations remain active.

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A Waymo vehicle drives with traffic on Dec. 27, 2025.  (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The company said its vehicles navigate construction zones more than 10,000 times per day and that it is using the pause to improve robotaxi performance on freeways.

The announcement comes after Waymo paused operations in Atlanta following flash-flooding incidents, while separately working to improve performance around construction zones and flooded roadways.

That pause followed reports of Waymo vehicles encountering floodwater in Atlanta on Wednesday; AJC reported one vehicle required recovery, while Waymo said a handful of others were temporarily waylaid.

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A Waymo autonomous taxi on Bush Street in San Francisco, California, US, on Dec. 17, 2025. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The move also comes after Waymo filed a recall covering 3,791 vehicles equipped with fifth- and sixth-generation Automated Driving Systems over a flooding-related software issue that NHTSA said could result in loss of vehicle control.

The recall followed an April 20 incident in which an unoccupied Waymo vehicle detected a potentially untraversable flooded section of a roadway with a 40 mph speed limit and proceeded at reduced speed, according to NHTSA.

The NHTSA report found that when a Waymo robotaxi approaches standing water on higher-speed roads, it may slow down but fail to fully stop after detecting the hazard.

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Waymo vehicle approaching the curb to pick up a passenger on February 19, 2026. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images / Getty Images)

Nearly 3,800 vehicles equipped with the company’s fifth and sixth-generation Automated Driving Systems (ADS) were recalled. Regulators estimated the defect rate at 100%.

According to NHTSA, Waymo applied an interim remedy to all affected vehicles on April 20, modifying the approved scope of operation of its ADS to exclude additional conditions that present an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higher-speed roadway. Waymo is still developing a final remedy.

Waymo operates thousands of vehicles across the U.S., including in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin.

FOX Business’ Bonny Chu and Reuters contributed to this report.

Share buyback refers to a corporate action where a company repurchases its own shares from existing shareholders, mostly at a premium to the market price. Only those shareholders who hold the shares of the companies in their demat accounts as on the record date will be eligible to tender shares in the offers.

Hence, if any investor is planning to take any fresh holding in the two companies today, the shares will be credited to her demat account on Monday as per SEBI’s T+1 settlement rule, making her ineligible to participate in the buybacks.

Welspun Living earlier this month announced a share buyback via the tender route at a price of Rs 175 per share, implying a premium of more than 20% over the stock’s previous closing price of Rs 145.50 apiece on NSE. The textiles company plans to buy back 144 lakh fully paid-up shares of the company with a face value of Re 1 each for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 252 crore. This represents 6.52% of the company’s total paid-up equity share capital and 5.65% of the free reserves.

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Promoters and promoter group have expressed their intention to participate in the share buyback, the company said, adding that the rationale behind the offer was to return surplus cash to its shareholders, improve return on equity and more.
Market regulator SEBI has mandated that 15% of a buyback’s total offer size must be reserved for small shareholders. The company said that it will determine the entitlement ratio on the basis of the shareholding pattern on the record date.
This comes after Welspun Living undertook a Rs 278 crore share buyback via the tender route back in August 2024. The buyback price for the offer was fixed at Rs 220 apiece.
The shares of the company have gained more than 8% in one week and 10% in one month, but declined 3% in one year. In the longer term, the stock delivered 58% returns over three years and 48% returns over five years.

CMS Info Systems buyback

CMS Info Systems fixed May 22 (Friday) as the record date for its share buyback worth Rs 168 crore. The tech company aims to repurchase over 49 lakh shares, representing 3% of its total stake, at a buyback price of Rs 340 per share. This implies a premium of more than 11% from the stock’s previous closing price.

The shares of CMS Info Systems have declined around 3% in one month and 14% in 2026 so far. The stock has tumbled 36% in the past one year. The company has a market capitalisation of nearly Rs 5,005 crore.