Aditya Puri, Bharti Airtel take top honours at Mint Investment Awards 2026

As the audience rose in unison and the applause swelled into a sustained, standing ovation, Aditya Puri — usually implacable and restrained — allowed himself a rare smile, and raised his arm in quiet acknowledgement of a room full of peers paying tribute to a remarkable career.

It was the closing moment of day two at the ninth edition of the Mint India Investment Summit. On a balmy Friday evening in Mumbai, after two days of sharp, often fractious debates spanning the economy, global volatility, dealmaking, and artificial intelligence, the mood shifted. The conversations gave way to celebration — of institutions and leaders who had defined the year’s deal landscape.

Puri, former managing director of HDFC Bank, received the evening’s highest honour: the Lifetime Achievement Award. It marked a career that saw him build a banking startup into India’s most valuable financial institution by the time he stepped down in 2020.

Among the other standout winners was Bharti Airtel, named Company of the Year — a new category — for its sustained financial performance and shareholder value creation over the past three years. The award was accepted on stage by group CFO Soumen Ray.

The ceremony also recognised standout corporate transactions, fund performance, and business leadership across the past year.

Deal winners

In the specific transaction categories, MUFG Group’s acquisition of a minority stake in Shriram Finance worth $4.4 billion secured the M&A Deal of the Year.

Within the private equity (PE) categories, KKR’s $1.4 billion exit from JB Pharma was awarded PE Exit of the Year, while TPG’s $1 billion investment in TCS Hypervault was named PE Investment of the Year.

In the venture capital segment, Peak XV’s partial exit through the initial public offering of Groww, where it clocked a 75x return worth $790 million, was recognized as the VC Exit of the Year. Westbridge’s $200 million investment in mobility firm Rapido won the VC Investment of the Year.

The awards were presented to the winners by M. Damodaran, chairperson, Excellence Enablers Pvt.

Selection methodology

The final winners were selected by a five-member jury panel comprising Keki Mistry, former vice-chairman and chief executive officer of HDFC Ltd; A. Velumani, founder of Thyrocare and managing director of AVM Labs; Manisha Girotra, managing director and head India at Moelis; Ankur Thadani, India head of TPG Growth and Rise; and Prashant Prakash, managing partner at Accel.

The evaluation process followed a defined methodology. For the investment awards, transaction data was sourced directly from Tracxn. The largest deals executed during the past year were taken into consideration and subsequently split into different assessment categories.

For the Company of the Year award, the evaluation was done for promoter-led listed companies that feature in the BSE100 index. These companies were assessed on the basis of shareholder value creation, operating performance and growth, capital allocation effectiveness, balance sheet and risk architecture, and corporate governance and transparency.