A single week in September gave a clear snapshot of where serious capital is actually moving in India right now — and how fast the Competition Commission of India is willing to clear it.
The cricket franchise deal
On September 17, 2026, the CCI cleared Westview Cricket Ltd and Poonawalla Sports and Fitness's acquisition of three professional cricket franchises in one transaction: Rajasthan Royals (India), Paarl Royals (South Africa), and Barbados Royals — a genuinely cross-border sports-business consolidation spanning three cricket leagues on three continents.
The private equity stake
The same day, the CCI cleared EAAA India Alternatives-managed funds acquiring a 50% stake in Great White Global Pvt Ltd — a straightforward but sizeable private equity move, cleared alongside the cricket deal on the same clearance date.
The Fairfax-IIFL deal
Five days later, on September 22, 2026, the CCI cleared FIH Mauritius Investments — part of Prem Watsa's Fairfax Group — acquiring shares in IIFL Capital Services Ltd. Fairfax has been a long-standing investor in Indian financial services, and this adds to that footprint in the capital markets and wealth-services space.
What ties these three deals together
Nothing about sector — cricket, alternative investments, and capital markets services have nothing obviously in common. What ties them together is speed and pattern: all three cleared within a single week, each without apparent regulatory friction, suggesting the CCI is processing genuinely varied M&A — cross-border sports assets, PE stakes, and foreign strategic investment in financial services — on broadly similar, efficient timelines.
Why this snapshot matters
For deal counsel and corporate development teams, this week is a useful live data point on CCI clearance velocity across very different deal types — useful context when setting timeline expectations for a pending or planned transaction. For sports-business and wealth-management sector watchers specifically, the Rajasthan Royals franchise consolidation and the Fairfax-IIFL deal are each worth tracking as standalone stories: one signals continued consolidation in professional cricket ownership across leagues, the other signals continued foreign strategic interest in Indian capital-markets infrastructure.
Sources: Concurrences — Cricket Franchises · Concurrences — Great White Global · Concurrences — IIFL