US-based Apollo Management will take a 11 per cent stake in the expanded equity of Dish TV, making its first media investment in India. Apollo will pump in $100 million to subscribe to Dish TV's GDR (Global Depositary Receipt) issue. Dish TV has priced its GDR at Rs 39.80 per share of Re 1 each. Indiantelevision.com was the first to report that Dish TV would be going in for a GDR issue as it plans to raise up to $200 million to fund its expansion programme.   more »

The proposed acquisition of LyondellBasell by Reliance, if it goes through, will be a winning bet for RIL as the company has enough cash reserves to fund the deal, which in turn will further boost its core businesses, say experts. Analysts of leading global investment banks like Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, CLSA and Citi have said the RIL-LyondellBasell deal would be value accretive for the Indian petrochem giant, besides the deal comes at a time when valuations are still low following the global economic slump. Credit Suisse in a research report said: "While it is still early days, such an acquisition is one way of using RIL's large cash, and increase earnings visibility beyond the ramp up of KG D6."   more »

Venture capital company, GVFL has announced an investment of Rs 11 crore in Bangalore-based iNurture Education Solutions Limited. Based out of Ahmedabad, the erstwhile Gujarat Venture Finance Limited made its sixth investment from the Rs 450-crore SME Technology Fund. Talking about the investment, Mihir Joshi, managing director of GVFL said, "What triggered the Rs 11 crore investment in iNurture was India's education sector and its potential. The sector offers assured demand growth, recession proof nature, and negative working capital. Today's growing economy expects students to be market ready. Government's recent policy directions and openness to adapt to this need allows players like iNurture to play a formidable role in this sector."   more »

The Department of Telecom has 'no objection' to the Russian government picking up 20 per cent stake in telecom service provider Sistema-Shyam for a little over $676 million (Rs 3200 crore). "SSTL (Sistema-Shyam Telecom Ltd) is permitted to bring in foreign equity by issue of fresh shares as per the Lock-In principles of the DoT,'' the department said, responding to a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) query where the proposal has bee n pending. A DoT note to the FIPB said SSTL has sought approval for FDI up to 20 per cent by the Federal Agency for State Property of Russian Federation into the company by subscription of up to 66.27 crore fresh equity shares of nominal value of Rs 10 a share at t he rate of Rs 49.31 per share approximately for an investment of up to USD 676 million dollar.   more »

Experian is the second credit bureau in the country to confirm conditions after Credit Information Bureau of India. Seven financial institutions, including Punjab National Bank (PNB), Union Bank of India and Axis Bank have picked up stake in the newly-formed credit bureau, Experian Credit Information Company of India. Experian is the second credit bureau to confirm conditions after Credit Information Bureau (India) (CIBIL), which is the only functional credit bureau at present. Experian said it would now apply to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a final license and commence operations within six months of receiving it.   more »

Royal Dutch Shell is in advanced talks to acquire a 10% stake in Essar Oil as part-payment for selling three of its European refineries to the Indian company , persons aware of the plan said. At current market prices, the stake will be worth around Rs 1,700 crore ($364 million) and account for a little less than half the estimated $800-million value of the refineries. In addition, Essar is looking to raise a loan of around $1.5 billion to fund the working capital needs of the refineries , two of which are in Germany and one in the UK. Shell and Essar Oil, India’s second-largest private refiner, are in exclusive talks until the end of this month. Any deal between the two will involve the sale of some of the local marketing operations but not the retail business.   more »