Daily Brief Event-Driven: India's Unexpected 0.5% Rate Cut: Friday’s Market Reaction Breakdown and more

In today’s briefing:

India’s Unexpected 0.5% Rate Cut: Friday’s Market Reaction Breakdown
Last Week in Event SPACE: Toyota Indust. Great Eastern, Mayne Pharma, Shibaura Elect., New World
(Mostly) Asia-Pac M&A: Soul Patts/ Brickworks, Spartan Resources, PointsBet, ESR Group, Tam Jai

India’s Unexpected 0.5% Rate Cut: Friday’s Market Reaction Breakdown

Context: On June 6, 2025, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unexpectedly cut interest rates by 50 basis points to 5.5%, double the anticipated 25 basis points.
The NIFTY 50 Index fluctuated initially but later stabilized at a 1.0% gain, while the NSE Nifty Bank Index rose 1.5%. At-the-money implied volatility changed little, while the skew rotated.
This Insight explains the RBI’s bold policy move, market reactions, and limitations of predictive models in navigating central bank decisions.

The value realisation of selling cross-holdings should not be contingent on selling your shares to someone else too cheaply but that is exactly what Toyota is proposing here.
OCBC is doing the right thing. Although a 17.8% bump in terms for Great Eastern Holdings (GE SP)‘s minorities is probably not enough to dislodge Palliser.
Cosette has lodged a termination notice, which Mayne Pharma (MYX AU) rejects. It’s anyone’s guess whether this saga concludes with a price cut; or Cosette walking.

I tally 44 – mostly firm, mostly Asia-Pac – arb transactions currently being discussed and analysed on Smartkarma.
Two new deal were discussed on Smartkarma this week: the Washington H. Soul Pattinson (SOL AU) / Brickworks Ltd (BKW AU)merger; and Great Eastern Holdings (GE SP)‘s Exit Offer.
Key updates/news took place on: Spartan Resources (SPR AU), PointsBet Holdings (PBH AU), ESR Group (1821 HK), and Tam Jai International (2217 HK).

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