Gokaldas Exports Ltd has dubbed speculative media reports that private equity fund Blackstone Group is close to investing $100 million to pick up 10-15% stake in the company.

India's Reliance Communications Ltd. is in talks with American Tower Corp. to sell a stake of up to 21 percent in its telecom towers business for at least $1.8 billion, a source familiar with the matter said. Reliance Communications values the whole unit, Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Ltd. (RTIL), at 350 billion rupees ($8.7 billion), about a third more than the company said the business was worth last month, the source added. Expectations that Reliance Communications may float off its towers business -- which is set to benefit from rapid expansion in the world's fastest growing mobile services market -- has boosted shares in India's second-largest mobile services firm after Bharti Airtel . "This time it will be a strategic investor. And American Tower seems to be very much interested. Reliance Communications is in talks to sell 15 percent or 21 percent in the towers business," the source said, adding the deal could be announced in the next 4-8 weeks. In July Reliance Communications said it had sold a 5 percent stake in the unit to seven institutional investors for 14 billion rupees, which it said valued the whole business at 270 billion rupees.   more »

Standard Chartered Bank on Tuesday said it was still in "advanced stage" of talks with Securities Trading Corporation of India (STCI) to buy a stake in its broking arm UTI Securities. "We remain interested in it (UTI Securities) and continue to talk," Standard Chartered Bank India CEO Neeraj Swaroop told reporters here. The foreign bank can pick up about 49 per cent stake in the company as UTI Securities is not allowed to sell more than 50 per cent, he added. The deal will help the bank to enter the retail stock broking market as UTI Securities offers institutional broking, retail broking and online broking. In February 2006, STCI had bought 100 per cent stake in UTI Securities for Rs 265 crore from the Specified Undertaking of UTI.   more »

Blackstone Group, a global private equity fund with $85 billion assets under management, is close to investing $100 million in publicly listed Gokaldas Exports, one of India’s largest apparel exporters. According to market information, Blackstone is likely to pick up 10-15 per cent stake for this investment to fuel Gokaldas’ expansion. A company spokesperson declined to comment on this development. If this investment sails through, it is expected to be one of the largest private investment in a public enterprise (PIPE) in the apparel sector. Gokaldas is a Rs 1,000 crore apparel exporter, which is looking at tapping into the domestic Indian market as the rising rupee is hitting exporters hard. The majority of this sum is expected to be used to fund its 400-acre, Rs 2,000 crore-special economic zone at Kanakapura, on the outskirts of Bangalore. A spokesperson said they were going through the process of getting approvals for this project, which is expected in the current financial year.   more »

Sebi to make quarterly disclosure a must. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will soon make it mandatory for international and domestic private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) funds to submit quarterly investment reports to the regulator. Currently, foreign and domestic venture capital funds registered with Sebi have been voluntarily submitting quarterly investment reports to the regulator. Market sources said foreign and domestic venture capital funds, generally, are secretive about their investments, making it difficult for the regulator to keep a tab on their investments in India. At present, there are about 80 foreign venture capital investors and 90 domestic venture capital funds registered with the Sebi. The reason cited for the new rules is that as a regulatory body there was a need for the maintaining reliable data on PE/VC investments. Globally, private equities are neither regulated nor are their investments kept track of by the regulators. In India, private equities can come through three routes: foreign institutional investors of whom Sebi maintains a record, foreign direct investment, the data for which can be obtained from the Reserve bank of India, and foreign venture capital investors (FVCI), which now Sebi has started collecting. FVCI investments is not reported mandatorily to the Sebi, though they disclose the data when asked by the Sebi.   more »

India's Bharti Airtel Ltd., Reliance Communications Ltd. and the Tata Group are bidding for 51 percent in state-owned Telkom Kenya, the Economic Times and Business Standard said on Wednesday. Representatives of the Indian companies are in Nairobi to participate in a bidders' conference, the Economic Times newspaper said, citing unnamed sources. A spokesman for Bharti, India's top mobile services operator, said the company was interested in international opportunities but would not comment on speculation. A spokesmen for Reliance Communications, the No. 2 operator, did not immediately return a call. A spokesman for Tata's Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. said Africa had been identified as an important market.   more »