INDRA Nooyi, one of the most prominent female CEOs in the world, announced on Monday (6) that she will step down as head of PepsiCo following 12 years navigating the soft drinks and snacks company through a tricky climate of shifting consumer taste amid rising concerns about healthy living.
Nooyi, 62, who was born in India, will be replaced as chief executive by president Ramon Laguarta on October 3, but will remain as chair of the board until early 2019 to oversee the transition.
"Today is a day of mixed emotions for me," Nooyi said on Twitter. PepsiCo "has been my life for 24 years & part of my heart will always remain here."
Among the 500 companies in the S&P 500, only 25 - or five per cent - are led by women, including Nooyi.
The group includes Lockheed Martin's Marilyn Hewson, IBM's Ginni Rometty and General Motors' Mary Barra, who in June appointed Dhivya Suryadevara as the company's first female chief financial officer
Nooyi told Bloomberg News on Monday that she planned to advocate for more women to serve at the highest levels of corporations, saying "my job is in fact just beginning once I leave PepsiCo because I can do things now that I was constrained to do when I was CEO of the company."
Under her leadership, PepsiCo net revenues rose from $35 billion in 2006 to $63.5 billion in 2017, with much of the growth coming from international markets.
Nooyi’s tenure included sparring with activist investor Nelson Peltz and fighting against a spate of municipal soda taxes.
In October 2016, PepsiCo unveiled 2025 sustainability targets that included vows to reduce waste and to ensure at least two-thirds of its global beverage portfolio contain fewer than 100 calories per serving.
PepsiCo presiding director Ian Cook hailed Nooyi as a "pioneer" among major chief executives in introducing sustainability targets into business performance and for upping its portfolio of healthier foods.
"She has delivered strong and consistent financial performance, managing with an eye toward not only the short-run, but the long-run as well," Cook said.
Even as Nooyi has stressed these long-term targets, she has been unapologetic in touting the company's products, which include snacks under the Frito-Lay banner such as Dorito corn chips and salsa, in addition to sugary carbonated drinks such as Pepsi cola and Mountain Dew.
Analyst Neil Saunders praised Nooyi for leading during an "extremely challenging" period in consumer products, praising in particular the decision to stick with snacks.
"With demand for soda under pressure, PepsiCo can now take comfort in the fact that it has a balanced portfolio of products - including in emerging areas like plant-based snacks from its recent acquisition of Bare Foods," said Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.
Nooyi described consumer tastes as often unpredictable, veering from a desire for artificial sweeteners to suspicion at unnatural ingredients. She discussed "tapering the consumer" to accept less sweet drinks over time during a November 2016 interview.
"Overnight you can't take away the sugar because the consumer says 'I like that, why did you take that away?'" she said. "So the consumer is schizophrenic."
While dismissing soda taxes as panacea, Nooyi was of the view that the surge in obesity needed to be countered in a "holistic" way to address huge portion sizes and other factors.
Nooyi came to the United States in 1978 to attend the Yale School of Management on a scholarship and worked at PepsiCo for 12 years prior to being tapped to lead the company.
Among PepsiCo's moves were buying a 50 per cent stake in US hummus maker Sabra in 2008 and acquisition of Brazilian snack company Mabel in 2011, a year that also saw the company unveil an alliance with Tingyi Holding in China.
Nooyi came under pressure from Peltz, who called for the company to be broken up in 2014. But Nooyi successfully beat back the challenge with a series of cost-cutting measures. Peltz exited the stake in 2016.
Morningstar analyst Sonia Vora predicted that Laguarta, himself a PepsiCo veteran of 22 years, would continue many of Nooyi's efforts and that the "bent toward more natural and wholesome fare will continue."
Vedanta Resources, which is based in the UK and owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal, has been working on reducing its debt. (Photo credit: Getty Images)
VEDANTA LTD said on Thursday that its parent company, Vedanta Resources, has signed a loan facility agreement worth up to £438 million with international banks to refinance existing debt.
The refinancing move, where old loans are replaced by new ones, often at better terms like lower interest rates, has led ratings agencies such as S&P Global Ratings and Moody's to upgrade their outlook on the company this year.
According to Vedanta's exchange filing on Thursday, the lenders involved in the deal include Standard Chartered Bank and its Mauritius unit, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Mashreqbank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.
Vedanta Resources, which is based in the UK and owned by Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal, has been working on reducing its debt.
The company lowered its net debt by £876m, bringing it down to £8.1 billion in fiscal 2025.
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Trump said that while deals are being made with some countries, others may face tariffs.
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump on Friday said a "very big" trade deal could be finalised with India, suggesting significant movement in the ongoing negotiations between the two countries.
“We are having some great deals. We have one coming up, maybe with India. Very big one. Where we're going to open up India," Trump said at the “Big Beautiful Bill” event at the White House.
The president also mentioned a trade agreement with China but did not provide details. "Everybody wants to make a deal and have a part of it. Remember a few months ago, the press was saying, 'You really have anybody of any interest? Well, we just signed with China yesterday. We are having some great deals," he said.
‘Some we are just gonna send a letter’
Trump said that while deals are being made with some countries, others may face tariffs. "We're not gonna make deals with everybody. Some we are just gonna send a letter saying thank you very much, you are gonna pay 25, 35, 45 per cent. That's an easier way to do it," he said.
Trump's comments come as an Indian delegation led by chief negotiator Rajesh Agarwal arrived in Washington on Thursday for the next round of trade talks with the US.
Talks ahead of July 9 deadline
Both countries are working on an interim trade agreement and are aiming to conclude it before July 9. The US had announced high tariffs on April 2, but the Trump administration suspended them until July 9.
Agriculture and dairy remain sensitive areas for India, which has not included dairy in any of its free trade agreements so far. India is cautious about offering duty concessions in these sectors.
The US is seeking duty reductions on items such as industrial goods, automobiles (especially electric vehicles), wines, petrochemical products, dairy products, and agricultural goods like apples, tree nuts, and genetically modified crops.
India, on the other hand, wants duty concessions for sectors such as textiles, gems and jewellery, leather goods, garments, plastics, chemicals, shrimp, oil seeds, grapes, and bananas.
ASDA, one of Britain’s largest supermarkets, has reported a pre-tax loss of £599 million for 2024, swinging sharply from a £180 million profit the previous year.
The loss comes despite total sales rising by over £1 billion to £26.8bn, as the retailer faces mounting debt costs, falling sales, and spiralling spending on a major IT overhaul, the Telegraph reported.
The main blow to Asda’s finances has come from its heavy debt load, a legacy of its £6.8bn buyout by the Issa brothers and private equity firm TDR Capital in 2021.
According to the report, the company’s debt pile, now close to £5bn, has become much more expensive to service as interest rates have risen. Last year, finance costs jumped by 38 per cent to £611 million, up from £441 million the previous year
Asda said it was forced to pay higher rates after refinancing part of its debt, putting further pressure on its bottom line.
Another major factor behind the loss is the ongoing “Project Future” – Asda’s multi-year plan to separate its computer systems from former owner Walmart. The project has been beset by delays and cost overruns, with total spending now approaching £1bn, far above its original budget
Last year alone, Asda spent £310m on the IT transition, which has included job cuts and outsourcing as the company tries to control costs. Problems with the new systems have also led to pay errors for thousands of staff.
While overall revenue rose thanks to new store openings, underlying sales have slipped. Like-for-like sales, excluding fuel, fell by 3.4 per cent to £21.7bn, with food sales down 3.7 per cent.
Meanwhile, Asda’s share in the UK grocery market has dropped to a record low of 12.1 per cent, with the retailer losing ground to rivals such as Tesco, Aldi, and Lidl
Despite efforts to win back shoppers with price cuts and a new convenience store push, Asda was the only major supermarket to report a sales decline in recent months, analysts said.
The company’s results were also hit by a £378m impairment charge, reflecting a drop in the value of its stores and assets. These one-off costs, combined with the IT spending, were singled out by Asda as the main reasons for the headline loss.
“The reported overall loss is the result of two significant one-off costs,” an Asda spokesman said, pointing to the impairment and Project Future costs. “These are not recurring costs and do not reflect the underlying performance of the business”
Allan Leighton, who returned as chairman last year, has launched a price war and cost-cutting drive to try to restore Asda’s fortunes. He has described many of the company’s problems as “self-inflicted” and is aiming to “turn it into what it was”. However, he has warned that a full recovery could take several years.
Despite the bleak headline numbers, Asda insists its core business remains profitable, with a pre-tax profit of £115m before exceptional items. Adjusted earnings before rent also rose slightly to £1.14bn.
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Mounjaro, or tirzepatide, is part of a new class of weight-loss medications, with trials showing patients losing an average of 20 per cent of their body weight after 72 weeks.
ELI LILLY said on Thursday that it has received approval from India's drug regulator to launch pre-filled injector pens of its weight-loss drug, Mounjaro.
The move gives the company more options to compete with Novo Nordisk, which recently launched its weight-loss drug Wegovy in the country.
Lilly began selling Mounjaro in India in late March for treating diabetes and obesity. Until now, it was available only in 2.5 mg and 5 mg vials.
"With this approval, all six dosage options for Mounjaro will soon be available in India, supporting a more personalised approach to treatment," Lilly India President Winselow Tucker said.
According to a company statement, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization has approved Mounjaro KwikPen, for once-weekly use, in six dose strengths: 2.5 mg, 5 mg, 7.5 mg, 10 mg, 12.5 mg and 15 mg.
The approval will allow Lilly to compete more directly with Denmark-based Novo Nordisk, which launched Wegovy in India on Tuesday with multiple dose strengths and an “easy-to-use” pen device.
India, with a rising number of diabetes and obesity cases, presents a major market for weight-loss drugs. A study published in the medical journal The Lancet ranks India among the top three countries globally for high obesity rates.
Lilly did not share pricing details. Each Mounjaro pen will have four fixed doses of 0.6 ml.
Mounjaro and Wegovy are part of a class of drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists. These help regulate blood sugar levels and slow digestion, which makes people feel full for longer periods.
In India, both companies are expected to face competition from domestic generic drugmakers that are working on lower-cost versions of Wegovy. The drug’s active ingredient, semaglutide, is set to go off patent in India next year.
INDIAN companies are well placed to support the UK’s economic growth, Eastern Eye has been told by Anuj Chande, partner and head of the South Asia Business Group at Grant Thornton.
He was speaking after the publication of Grant Thornton’s India Meets Britain Tracker 2025: The latest trends in Indian investment in the UK, which was released last week. While companies in India need little encouragement to enter the UK market, the reverse is not true.
Chande noted that small and medium-sized British businesses often remain unaware of the significant opportunities available in India and need more support to explore them.
He suggested that the 2.5 millionstrong British Indian community could play a vital role in helping UK firms understand the potential in India.
Chande said: “Maybe the UK government should appoint British Indian ambassadors to educate people who are not familiar with India that it is actually a great place to invest.”
The problem, he said, was not with large firms such as Tesco, M&S and BT. “If you look at all the big (UK) companies that have invested in India, they have all increased in size. I was told the other day that Tesco, which has a joint venture with Tata, now employs more people in India than in the UK.”
Chande said, in the 35 years he had been working in the UK-India corridor, “there’s not much traffic going from the UK to India. Mid-sized companies are starting to come. What needs to be done is a lot more publicity and coverage. If you take any sector, whether it’s consumer, healthcare, education, engineering or manufacturing, India has something to offer, quite apart from the sheer market size.
“Everyone talks about (India’s population of) 1.4 billion, but if you look in terms of middle-class consumers, it’s probably about 300-500 million, and growing rapidly. The UK is 50-60 million. India is 10 times the size.”
Piyush Goyal with shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves (centre), Vikram Doraiswami and other officials at the India Global Forum
The recently signed UK-India Free Trade Agreement “has opened up the market and there are no significant trade barriers, particularly as the UK domestic market is stagnant, with pedestrian economic growth here. The Department of Business and Trade have a role to play in making UK c o m p a n i e s aware of this opportunity on the back of the FTA.”
Chande spoke of the India Meets Britain Tracker, which is normally done in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
“This year we have brought on the IGF (India Global Forum) as a collaboration partner as they are very focused on future trends,” he explained.
A summary of the 2025 report, which Chande outlined at an IGF conference last week, says: “There are now 1,197 Indian-owned companies operating in the UK, an increase of more than 23 per cent on 2024 when 971 were recorded.
“The combined revenues reported by Indian-owned companies in the UK increased to £72.14 billion from £68.09bn in 2024. These businesses employ 126,720 people across the UK and have added over 8,000 new jobs in the past year.
“The proportion of female directors has also increased to 24 per cent from 21 per cent in 2024.
“This year’s listing of the fastest-growing companies also delivers strong results, with 74 companies recording revenue growth of 10 per cent or more. The 2025 Tracker companies achieved an average growth rate of 42 per cent and a combined turnover of £32.6bn. These firms also paid £67.3 million in corporation tax and created more than 56,000 jobs.
“Wipro IT Services UK Societas tops the growth rankings with a 448 per cent revenue surge, followed by a new entrant, corporate IT management firm, Zoho corporation Ltd, which posted 197 per cent growth.
“In terms of the sectors with the most Indian owned firms, the TMT (Technology, Media, and Telecommunications) sector continues to lead, accounting for 31 per cent of Tracker companies. Pharmaceuticals and chemicals hold strong in second place (22 per cent). Notably, financial services rose to 9.5 per cent of Tracker companies – their highest proportion in recent years – driven by the strategic expansion of Indian banks and financial institutions in London’s global finance hub.”
Chande said: “As the recent milestone UK-India Free Trade Agreement highlighted, there is a distinct economic commonality between the UK and India and a mutual desire to trade and invest more with one another. The UK government has said the deal would boost trade by an additional £25.5bn a year by 2040, which will give UK SME’s and corporates much better access to the fastest growing economy and an increasing middle-class population of 300 million plus.”
The tracker has a section called, Barriers to India investment in the UK, listing shifting tax regulations, complex immigration and visa requirements, increasing salary costs, challenges posed by the absence of an India-UK bilateral investment treaty, and market entry complexities.
Chande told the conference of the changes that had occurred in the 10 years since the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi packed out Wembley Stadium with 60,000 people in 2015: “There’s been a 50 per cent increase in the number of Indian companies in the UK. The size of combined turnover has also increased by 50 per cent and the number of employees has gone up by 25 per cent.”
Also present at the conference was Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce and industry minister, and Jonathan Reynolds, secretary of state for business and trade and president of the Board of Trade.
And , Goyal with Jonathan Reynolds
Goyal said: “I think the best way to understand why this (FTA) deal matters for businesses in the UK would be by explaining where the India growth story is heading. We are currently a $4 trillion (£2.9tr) economy, the fifth largest in the world. By the end of calendar 2025, when this year’s numbers come out, we will officially be declared the fourth largest economy. And by 2027, India is slated to become the third largest GDP in the world. “
Second data point I’d like you to recognise is that we are a young country. Our average age is 28.4 years. There’s no comparable country of size and scale with such a young population, expected to continue to be young for the next three decades.
“So, imagine an economy which is growing in US dollar terms, almost by 10 per cent a year, doubling every eight years. By 2047 when we celebrate 100 years of independence, we would have grown from a $4tr (£2.9tr) economy today to a $32tr (£23.7tr) economy.”
Goyal declared: “India is well poised to present to UK businesses a great opportunity. We can help the UK economy grow faster in a very uncertain world, full of volatility, full of uncertainty, full of challenges and crisis. India is an oasis of stability and rapid growth, home to a generally peaceful people who are recognised across the world. We have 40 million Indians across the world, recognised for their talent, for their skill, for the value they add to local economies and for their peaceful nature. They assimilate very well. You have a large Indian diaspora in the UK. You would never have found them wanting in terms of their loyalty to the UK, would never have found them creating any kind of disruption to the peace and harmony of the communities. And that is the strength of India.