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Domestic brokerage firm Religare Enterprises is close to acquiring London’s oldest broking firm; Hichens, Harrison & Co. The deal is expected to be announced by this weekend. The size of the acquisition is pegged over $100 million (about Rs 400 crore). For the half-year ended June 2007, Hichens, Harrison & Co — listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange —had reported revenues of £10.6 million and operating profits of £2.9 million. If successful, this would be first overseas acquisition by an Indian brokerage firm abroad. When ET contacted, Religare CEO and MD Sunil Godhwani said, “We are constantly evaluating opportunities to strengthen our business model both through organic and inorganic routes, especially for our institutional business.” The proposed acquisition is expected to give Religare a foothold in the extremely competitive international capital markets. The company, which currently has one of the largest retail networks among Indian brokerage firms, is now eyeing a strong presence in the institutional space. […]
Tano Capital LLC said Tuesday it made a $7.4 million investment into Anil Printers Ltd. on behalf of Tano India Private Equity Fund I. San Mateo-based Tano said India-based Anil is a printing company that manufactures prepaid scratch cards, pin mailers, airline tickets, cargo bills, and carbon-less stationery for the telecommunications, banking, courier, and logistics industries. With this investment, APL plans to manufacture smart cards and RFID labels in technical collaboration with Mühlbauer High Tech International of Germany. […]
Fund manager Trikona Capital Ltd is exploring various options to raise funds to invest $1 billion annually in India over the next ten years, a top official said. “Trikona intends to raise the money through public and private equity from institutional investors. We are evaluating options. We will also pump money from sell downs back into the deal pipeline,” Managing Director Aashish Kalra told Reuters. Trikona is an India-focussed fund management firm and manages the 250-million-pound Trikona Trinity Capital Plc fund listed on London's Alternative Investment Market. The funds go into India's real estate and infrastructure sectors. […]
State Bank of India (SBI), India's largest bank, said it has bought a 91 pct stake in Global Trade Finance Ltd (GTF), trade finance solutions provider, without mentioning the size of the deal. The bank — 59.7 pct-owned by the Indian government — said it has executed a share-purchase agreement with Exim Bank, FIM Bank Malta and International Finance Corp (IFC), the World Bank's private sector lending arm, to acquire their holdings in GTF. On Jan 24, the company said it intended to buy the stake for about 5.2 bln rupees. EXIM holds 40 pct of GTF while the Washington-based IFC holds 12.5 pct, FIM Bank has a 38.5 pct stake and India's state-run Bank of Maharashtra owns the remaining 9 pct. GTF reported a net profit of 288.7 mln rupees in 2007, a rise of 171 pct year-on-year. ( Forbes) […]
In spite of attractive valuations this year, Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) deals are increasingly falling out of favour as most deals sealed in this calendar year are in unlisted or privately held companies. Out of the 87 private equity deals that were struck in the first two months of this calendar year, only 10 were in listed companies. While some experts have been saying that there will be more PIPE deals as stock prices are now attractive, the numbers tell a different story. “At least for the first quarter of this year and the second quarter to some extent, PIPE deals will be impacted depending on how market conditions pan out,” says Arun Natarajan, founder and CEO of Venture Intelligence, a private equity and venture capital monitoring firm […]
Tata Motors will buy luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor for $2.3 bn in cash. The purchase price is less than half of what Ford had paid for the two brands as demand for luxury vehicles has dropped the world over. The acquisition is the largest ever by an Indian company in the automobile space. Ford will pay about $600 mn to the Jaguar Land Rover pension funds, the two companies said in a joint statement today. Ford had bought Jaguar in 1989 for $2.5 bn while Land Rover was bought from BMW for $2.5 bn in 2000. The transfer of ownership to Tata Motors is expected to close by the end of the next quarter, subject to regulatory approvals. “We have enormous respect for the two brands and will endeavour to preserve and build on their heritage and competitiveness, keeping their identities intact,” Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata said. Alongwith the two brands the deal will involve acquisition of plants and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) held by the two brands. Tata Motors did not mention the mode of financing the deal, but sources familiar with the developments said it would be done mainly through bridge financing from a clutch of banks, including JP Morgan, Citigroup and State Bank of India (SBI). The company is raising Rs 4,000 crore through issue of securities in the foreign and domestic market in one or more tranches […]
Electric car manufacturer Reva Electric Car Co. Pvt. Ltd breathes easier in five states—its users don’t have to pay road taxes on electric vehicles in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan. In others, buyers of the electric car still have to shell out money that varies from an annual Rs5,000 to up to 9% of the purchase price. While a few states grant such exemptions towards non-polluting vehicles, “there is no uniform long-term policy in place,” rues Chetan Maini, deputy chairman and chief technology officer, Reva. The Bangalore-based company, funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) and Global Environment Fund, today exports some seven of 10 Reva-branded cars to other markets where regulations are friendlier towards environmentally “clean” transport, but would like India to be a larger market. It has been lobbying for government subsidies and exemption on road tax, value-added tax and excise duty, among other levies, by talking to the various ministries and government departments at both the state and national level. […]
A tightening of global liquidity markets has made private equity fund raising for the real estate and infrastructure sectors difficult with many funds expected to extend their closures or reduce the target corpus. According to people in the industry, the churn in the global equity markets has made investors wary of even private equity funds, although the two markets are in different categories with different quantum of risks. […]
The Indian outsourcing sector is amongst the worst hit by the rising rupee with most of the companies showing a slump in growth and profitability. Valuations too have fallen. However, this situation not only reflects the ‘deteriorated revenue growth expectation’ of investors, but also makes the domestic BPO (business process outsourcing) space ripe for heightened M&A (merger and acquisition) activity. […]
Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank are set to make a combined investment of $500 million in an SPV floated by India’s second-most valued real estate developer Unitech, according to a person close to the development. The two PE players are learnt to be in advanced talks with Unitech to pick up a minority stake in the SPV formed to execute two commercial projects in Mumbai. The two projects, located in Santa Cruz, are likely to have a combined developable office space of 2 million sq ft. The deal is likely to be closed in the next three weeks, according to a source. Unitech declined comment on the issue. […]
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