Mukund Bubna

Man Plans, God laughs!

[Sahil Kapoor @SahilKapoor]

India Inc’s listed profits in FY27 are likely to cross Rs.20.7 lakh crore.

Against that, the listed market cap is around Rs.480 lakh crore.

That means we are paying a tad over 23x earnings for the full listed market.

The Nifty Top 10 Equal Weight Index has an aggregate market cap of around Rs. 80 lakh crore and profits of about Rs.4.5 lakh crore. That implies a valuation of less than 18x earnings.

The remaining 6,000-plus listed firms earn the balance Rs. 16.2 lakh crore of profits and trade at around 24.6x trailing earnings.

The quality gap is even sharper.

The top 10 companies average around 22% ROE.
The rest average around 15% ROE.

So the market is paying a lower multiple for higher ROE businesses, and a higher multiple for lower ROE businesses. The difference in valuation payment is 660bps.👀

That is the current valuation anomaly.

Data: BSE All India MCap, NSE, company fin.

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Meta coins for every message sent/received

[Gabbar @GabbbarSingh]

What do you think the first unique thing Kunal will add to WhatsApp?

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Wow

[Kunal Shah @kunalb11]

It’s been a minute.

2015–2018
- Exited FreeCharge. Spent time learning and investing.
- Pondered about: Why can't trust be rewarded? Started with $1M of personal capital.
- Launched CRED to reward people for paying credit card bills on time.

2019–2025
- Built a system run by a team that values ownership, judgment, and craft.
- Grew from 0 to 17M members by aligning incentives with behaviour.
- Built several products during COVID lockdowns.
- Raised $900M+ from global investors. Did 4 ESOP buybacks.
- Made Indiranagar and IPL ads slightly more interesting.
- Received a full stack of regulatory licences.
- Lost 35 kilos.
- Scaled from 0 to ~$325M ( ~₹3,200 crore) in annual revenue across payments, lending, insurance, commerce, wealth, and credit cards.
2026
- First profitable quarter (yet occasionally asked what our business model is)
- Raised another $900M from Meta in primary and secondary capital.
- Announcing our 5th ESOP buyback.

Today

CRED is ready for its next phase. I am stepping back and @miten steps in as interim CEO, partnered with an incredibly talented team. He has been heading strategy and finance and suffering me since 2020. I’m stepping away from the operating role and will continue as a shareholder. My commitment doesn’t change. Just the role.

Extremely grateful to our members, partners, regulators, and investors who made this possible. And to our board, Shailendra, Micky, Saurabh for their extraordinary conviction.

Team CRED, I’ll still expect you to be a 10x version of yourselves.

As for me, I’ll be joining Meta to lead WhatsApp globally.

Meta comes in as a minority investor in CRED. No access to member data.

While it’s come very far, the delta between WhatsApp today and its full potential is massive. I look forward to working with Mark, Chris, and the leadership across Meta for the next step in WhatsApp’s journey. Will, thank you for scaling something the world relies on quietly, and for making this transition smooth.

Onwards.

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@InsightTimer How about having a 15 mins sleep timer too?

10 mins is short, 20 mins is too long. IYKYK!

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@kislayverma @shoffr_in Any plans of launching in Mumbai?

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Air India should get a hawan done for all its aircrafts

[ANI @ANI]

An Air India flight was hit by a bird during landing at Raipur Airport this morning. The flight was coming to Raipur from Delhi. After completing the necessary Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), the flight took off for its destination: Raipur Airport Authority

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@albinder @letsblinkit @blinkitcares

Since you have already made us lazy, how about keeping “Ubla hua Aloo” also.

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@metalgamerak True

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Any update on HSBC-Accor bonus conversion?

#HSBC

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@Prof_Cheems @KhammaGhanee

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@ANI What is there to report in this?

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

How much do I miss this😭😭

[Yatin Mota @yatinmota]

Hello Kolkata!

Today enjoying Jal Muri and Malai Toast near Kolkata Stock Exchange

@KavishKRS

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

When is Eng vs NZ second test? Next year?

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Wtf

[BLACKCAPS @BLACKCAPS]

One of our greatest ever, signing off.

Kane Williamson has announced his retirement from international cricket effective immediately.

Head to https://t.co/Pm8RiU65zt to read more.

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@KhammaGhanee Took 17 yrs to figure how T20 is played

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Question 5:
Will there be transparency this time around at the petrol pumps? Can the customers get an option to choose what they are feeding to their cars?

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Well written.

Question Number 4:
What happens to the Car Insurance already taken? While E27/30 might be a good excuse for insurance companies to avoid claims, where do the consumers go?

[Malay Krishna @Malay4Product]

This notification is one of the most important fuel documents of the decade.

Let me explain what just happened.

The government charges a tax called excise duty on petrol. This paper says petrol mixed with 22%, 25%, 27% or 30% ethanol will pay zero excise duty.

Zero tax is the government's way of telling oil companies, start blending more ethanol, we will make it worth your investment.

This was coming.

On May 15, the Bureau of Indian Standards quietly notified IS 19850:2026, the official specification for E22, E25, E27 and E30 petrol. So they have mentioned the standard, and then the tax exemption.

But why is the government in such a hurry?

Three reasons;

Reason 1

The programme has been a genuine success on its own terms. India hit 20% blending in 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 timeline.

Twenty years ago we could barely manage 5%. Crude imports fell, foreign exchange was saved, and over ₹1.18 lakh crore has gone to farmers through ethanol purchases.

For a country that imports most of its oil, every litre of ethanol is a litre of crude oil we did not buy from abroad, making us self-sufficient in our crude oil needs.

Reason 2

There is a supply glut because distilleries went on an expansion spree. India's installed ethanol capacity is close to 20 billion litres a year, with 4 billion more coming, while E20 needs only about 11 to 12 billion litres.

So we have built double the capacity we need. Those plants took loans. They need buyers. The only buyer big enough is the petrol pump.

E20 cannot absorb the supply, so the blend has to go up. The push to E30 is partly climate policy and partly capacity bailout.

Reason 3

Maize has now overtaken sugarcane as the biggest ethanol feedstock, supplying nearly half of all ethanol. The farm lobby behind this programme is now two crops.

But all of this has come at a cost;

When E20 rolled out, regular car owners paid the cost.

A government-funded study by ARAI and Indian Oil found fuel economy dropping up to 6% on E20 depending on the vehicle.

Owners of older cars reported worse.

So even though ethanol is cheaper than petrol. The blending saved money only for oil companies. The pump price you paid did not fall.

On top of that, you got no choice. Most pumps stopped offering plain petrol or E10.

E27 and E30 raise the same questions, with higher stakes. Cars sold in India were made E20-compatible only from around 2023.

There are crores of vehicles on the road before that were never designed for 27 or 30% ethanol. The industry's own target is E30 rollout between 2028 and 2030, which means a huge chunk of today's fleet will still be running when the new fuel arrives.

Brazil is the comparison everyone uses, and it is worth understanding properly.

Brazil runs E27 with nearly universal flex-fuel vehicles. Their cars were built for it over decades. The fuel and the fleet moved together.

So, we are moving the fuel first and hoping the fleet catches up.

So in nutshell, the notification tells oil companies and distilleries to blend more, and it says nothing to the car owners.

Three questions deserve clear answers before E27 petrol shows up at our neighbourhood pump.

1. Will pump prices actually fall this time, since both the ethanol and now the tax are cheaper? Will the zero excise duty gain disappear into oil company margins again?

2. Will older vehicles get a protected option, a pump that still sells E10 or E20 for cars that cannot handle more blending?

3. And will mileage loss be communicated honestly, with numbers, instead of being discovered by drivers at the fuel station?

The ethanol programme is one of the few Indian policies that has been implemented at a break neck pace.

Farmers have earned, imports have fallen, and an entire industry has been built in a decade. That deserves credit.

But going from E10 to E20 strained the system. Going from E20 to E30 with an unprepared vehicle fleet will most likely break it.

30 crore vehicle owners are waiting for answers.

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

Statpadders

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@AmazingCreditC @Scarface090999 @cards_wizard @imYadav31 Okay

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@Scarface090999 @cards_wizard @imYadav31 @AmazingCreditC Okay

[Mukund Bubna @mukund_bubna]

@imYadav31 @Scarface090999 @cards_wizard @AmazingCreditC Okay