Plethico Pharmaceuticals has decided to acquire 20% stake in a CIS retail pharmacy chain for $20 million. In an all-cash deal, Plethico will acquire 20% stake in a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Tricon Holdings, the company said in a release to the BSE on Friday, without disclosing the name of the target firm. The acquisition is expected to add Rs 100 crore to Plethico’s topline in the first year. On the other hand, Tricon will get access to over 1,000 products from Plethico and its subsidiary, Natrol. The deal is expected to be completed by next month.   more »

The terror attacks that rocked India's financial capital may depress stocks, dampen tourism and slow new investment, but are unlikely to inflict long-term damage on the nation's economy, analysts and business people said Thursday. "This is a challenge for the government to maintain law and order in the country," said Takahira Ogawa, director of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor's in Singapore. "At this stage, I don't think there will be any major impact on the macroeconomic or fiscal position of the government."Indeed, Mumbai has a long history of terror attacks -- and has managed to bounce back from them. A series of bombings in July 2006 killed 187 people. Chandiok said Indian companies are going to have to take security issues more seriously going forward, and Grant Thornton's India office has already begun a review of its policies.   more »

The global economic downturn notwithstanding, venture capital (VC) investments have continued to flow into India and China, with both countries witnessing a significant surge in the third quarter this year. According to a study by research firm Venture Intelligence, VC investment in India grew by 36 per cent at $290 million for the third quarter ended September 30. Meanwhile in mainland China, VC investments grew by 22 per cent to $964 million at the end of the third quarter, as per data by Dow Jones VentureSource.   more »

Ujjivan Financial Services announced the successful completion of the fourth round of equity infusion. Originally planned for $15.6 million (Indian Rupees 750 million), the equity round was over-subscribed and increased to $19.6 million (Indian Rupees 940 million). The incremental capital was largely subscribed by existing shareholders including Unitus Equity Fund (UEF) managed by Elevar Equity L.L.C., Bellwether Microfinance Fund, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, A.W. Holdings and individual investors including promoter & CEO Samit Ghosh. The five new investors in this private placement transaction includes: Sequoia Capital, Lok Capital, Unitus Equity Fund II, India Financial Inclusion Fund and SIDBI.   more »

After nearly eight months of negotiations, CMS Computers has clinched a deal to sell a majority stake to private equity firm Blackstone for over Rs 250 crore. An investment banker familiar with the deal said an announcement is expected this week and Avendus was one of the advisors to CMS. There was no response to calls made to the company’s founder promoter, R D Grover. ET had reported in June about the company’s plan to raise money from PE players. The CMS group is one of the oldest business groups in the country with interests in IT. It is also one of few firms with a significant presence in the domestic IT business. Mr Grover has been in negotiations with Blackstone for several months.   more »

Suzlon Energy is exploring possibilities of selling part of its promoters’ stake in its unlisted Indian units to private equity firms, to raise money for buying Martifer’s equity stake in REpower. The Tulsi Tanti-promoted company, last month, postponed a Rs 1,800-crore rights issue that would have part-financed the Martifer stake buyout, estimated at about $338 mn (about Rs 1,690 crore), according to sources close to the development. Suzlon has 66% in REpower and has to acquire the Portugal-based Martifer’s 22.5% stake, as per an earlier agreement.   more »

Baring Private Equity Partners expects more Indian firms to tap private equity as markets and economies deteriorate further, limiting firms' ability to raise funds for expansion, a partner at its India unit said. Subbu Subramaniam told Reuters in an interview the credit crisis was also giving private equity firms bargaining power, enabling them to target listed and larger firms. "I can see that there is more pain to come in U.S. and because of that here also," Subramaniam said.   more »

As buoyancy transformed into nightmare in the global financial market, Indian private equity players, for whom the exit through initial public offer (IPO) seems impossible, are exploring the ways to find an exit from their investments. Secondary deals, exercising drag-along rights and stake sale to FIIs, all of which are not so common in Indian PE scenario, are expected to increase in the recent future as floating IPO by the companies remain a fantastic idea in the current market tumble. In 2007, about 95 IPOs were floated, out of which 16 PE players made the exits. However, this year, as of today, about 9 PE exits were made out of a total of 36 IPOs. Two months back, through a secondary deal, Azim Premji had bought a 10% stake in Subhiksha. This transaction was done by Premji’s personal investment entity Zash Investments Ltd from ICICI Ventures, a private equity arm of ICICI Bank. Subhiksha has indefinitely deferred its IPO plan.   more »

In October 2007, Bangalore-based developer Nitesh Estates tied up with Citigroup Property Investors, the real estate private equity (PE) arm of Citigroup Inc., to set up shopping malls worth around $300 million (about Rs1,180 crore then) in Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Kochi and Bangalore over the next three-four years. Now, Nitesh Estates is looking for another partner or investor for the shopping mall venture, a senior company official said on Monday on condition of anonymity, because the decision to tie up with another entity hasn’t yet been made. Citi received a bailout on Sunday under which the US government agreed to protect the largest US bank from hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic assets and infused $20 billion of fresh capital.   more »

IJM (India) Infrastructure Ltd (IJMII), a subsidiary of IJM Corporation Berhad (IJM)-one of the largest and diversified construction groups in Malaysia, is looking at diluting its equity stake in matured assets to unlock some portion of investments for better cash flow. The company is open to the idea of offloading its stake to private equity (PE) partners. It has received several enquiries from serious domestic and international PE players in this regard. Speaking to FE, Teh Kean Ming, deputy chief executive officer and deputy managing director of IJM Berhad said, “we are looking at giving away a portion of our equity stake in some of the matured assets (projects that are completed), to unlock the value of the assets to a certain extent. The company is also willing to dilute equity in some of the ongoing projects. The value realised in this process, would be used to meet the capital requirements of the existing and future projects of the company. Equity dilution will happen only at the SPV level and not at the company level. IJMII will be a 100% subsidiary of IJM Berhad.”   more »