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Telenor has reportedly planned to acquire majority stake in the Indian mobile operator Unitech Wireless. According to the agreement, the initial investment in Unitech Wireless made by Telenor will be worth $1.2 billion, though the operator will now acquire 67.25% stake and not 60%, which it had announced earlier. The subscription of shares will be completed in four phases. After the completion of first phase, which will be done soon, Telenor will own 33.5% stake in Unitech Wireless.(WF) […] Larsen & Toubro on Tuesday said it has no plans to rope in a private equity partner to jointly bid scam-hit Satyam Computers. “We are not in discussion with private equity firms to jointly bid for Satyam. This is purely speculative,” L&T's Director (Finance) Y M Deosthalee said. He was responding to reports that the engineering major was in talks with Blackstone, the Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs and Temasek among others to jointly bid for Satyam. […] Bank Muscat said on Tuesday it had sold 40 percent of its holdings in India's HDFC Bank and planned to sell its entire stake. Oman's largest lender said in a statement on the bourse website that it expected 4 million rials ($10.39 million) to 7 million rials in losses in the first quarter related to its equity portfolio. Bank Muscat has a stake of about 3 percent in HDFC. (ET) […] In a bid to provide access to entrepreneurial, technology and financial resources in one place to accelerate the success of high-potential technology startups, IDG Ventures India and Microsoft India announced an ‘Early Stage Funding Program’. This partnership will offer dual benefit to the startups registering for Microsoft BizSpark wherein they will get a funding of up to 25 crore rupees by IDG Ventures and access to Microsoft suite including the latest tools and technologies at no cost. The program is open to technology companies that are under three years old, and whose annual revenues are less than Rs 5 crore (US D 1 million). Companies meeting these eligibility criteria will be offered access to development software through Microsoft’s BizSpark program; and asked to send their business plans to IDG Ventures for evaluation. Startups that meet the investment criteria of the VC will be provided access to funding of up to Rs 25 crore. […] Reliance Money Express, a part of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group announced that the company would acquire UK-based forex firm, No 1 Currency. The company becomes first Indian company to acquire an international foreign exchange company. With the acquisition of the UK's fastest growing independent foreign currency specialist, Reliance Money Express would widen its service offering globally. […] Logistic service provider Allcargo Global has acquired a 5.97-per cent stake in rival Gateway Distripark for Rs29 crore, in an open market deal. Allcargo said that the transaction was “purely a treasury investment” and was funded from internal accruals. Global private equity fund Blackstone Group LP has a 10.39-per cent stake in Allcargo. The 6.1 million equity shares were bought by Sealand Terminals Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Allcargo from the Singapore government's investment arm Temsek Holdings Pte Ltd. […] IDG Ventures India and Microsoft India today announced a funding programme under which the former intends to invest up to Rs 100 crore in start ups.With this partnership, a start up gets Microsoft suite of tools and technologies free for three years, as well as access to funding of up to Rs 25 crore by IDG Ventures, officials of two entities said. The programme is open to technology companies that are under three-year old, and whose annual revenues are less than Rs 5 crore. Companies meeting the criteria would be offered access to development softare at no upfront cost through Microsoft's BizSpark programme, announced last December in India, providing start ups software and support during their first three years with no upfront costs. Start ups meeting the investment criteria of the venture capital firm would be provided access to funding of up to Rs 25 crore. […] The world's biggest private equity firm, Blackstone Group is all set to invest around Rs 240 crore to purchase 10.38% stake in Mumbai-based logistics firm Allcargo Global. Besides, the US-based company has also expressed its intention to buy another 4.61% of the enhanced paid up equity from the open market. Allcargo will issue 1,000 equity shares and 1,081,081 fully and compulsorily convertible debentures (FCCD), convertible into an equal number of equity shares, at Rs 934 each to Blackstone. The company will also issue 1,513,514 warrants, convertible into equal number of equity shares at the choice of the investors from the date of issuance, between Rs 934 and Rs 1,284 per warrant. […] Bangalore-based Cellworks Group Inc., which also has an office in California, has raised about $8-10 million (Rs41.44-51.80 crore) from a California private equity (PE) investor, details of which will be announced in the next few weeks, says its co-founder and chief executive Taher Abbasi. Still, in a financing environment that is getting more challenging by the day, if an Indian biotechnology start-up raises close to $10 million in private equity it doesn’t necessarily signal an uptick in the biotech fortunes, rather this sets it apart from the rest as many of them begin to look for government money. Abbasi, who has been negotiating this deal for some time, agrees that “investors are not issuing new term sheets and new deals are on hold”. […] Private equity (PE) investments in India declined by over 50 per cent, between April 2008 and February 2009, to $6.6 billion (around Rs 33,000 crore) from $14.3 billion (Rs 70,000 crore) a year ago. Total number of deals also dropped 33 per cent, to 292 from 436. According to industry experts, investment activity would pick up slowly through the year although they do not expect 2009 to be much better than 2008. Arun Natarajan, founder and chief executive officer, Venture Intelligence, a Chennai-based PE research firm which compiled the data, said that, except for media and entertainment which reported a 96 per cent growth in value terms, all industries have reported a drop in investments. Some of the big-ticket investments during the period include a $428-million investment by Providence in Adiya Birla Telecom in May 2008, followed by $225 million by GIC in Reid & Taylor India in June 2008, $190 million by a PE consortium led by IDFC in Quippo Telecom Infrastructure in August 2008, $175 million by Goldman Sachs in Mahindra & Mahindra in May and $174 million by Masdar in WinWind in September 2008. […] |