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Red Fort Capital, the investment manager of Cayman Islands-based Red Fort India Real Estate Fund I, is planning to launch a second offshore fund next month with a corpus of Rs 3,200 crore ($800 million) to invest in the Indian real estate. The fund will be named Red Fort India Real Estate Fund II and is expected to close in June this year. Red Fort is targeting individual investors, corporate entities, pension funds, insurance companies, foundations, endowments and governments in Europe, the US and other countries, according to Subhash Bedi, partner, Red Fort Capital. The fund will invest in FDI-compliant projects in the residential, commercial, retail and hospitality sectors and has an investment threshold of Rs 40 crore ($10 million). ‘’We are expecting returns of 30 per cent,’’ Bedi said. […]
Nalanda India has picked up a 5.25% stake in US-listed BPO firm WNS (Holdings). The fund acquired 2.2 million shares of the BPO firm, which is listed on the NYSE, according to an SEC filing by WNS. Though the transaction size was not disclosed, going by the scrip price on March 14-the day of the transaction- the deal value would be about $32-34 million. The BPO firm has a market cap of $667.6 million and is majority owned by Warburg Pincus. Institutional investment, including that by asset management firm Fidelity Management & Research and Tiger Management, in WNS totals 38.01%. […]
Irish building materials group CRH on Thursday announced the acquisition of a 50% stake in Hyderabad-based cement company, My Home Industries (MHIL) for 290 million euros (Rs 1,840 crore). Promoted by J Rameswar Rao, closely-held MHIL operates three cement plants in Andhra Pradesh’s Nalgonda district with a total capacity of 3.2 million tonnes (MT). CRH and the existing owners will jointly manage MHIL with equal board and management representation. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2008. Production capacity will rise to 4.2 MT once the grinding plant under construction near Visakhapatnam is completed in early 2009, according to a CRH statement. “MHIL is one of the most modern cement producers in India with excellent reserves and a strong management team and is a market leader in the dynamic Andhra Pradesh market. […]
The bearish market may have made retail investors cautious, but it has encouraged private equity funds queue up to invest in Indian companies, as it helps them leverage a reasonable valuation. In a bullish market, companies wanting to raise funds through private equity placement commanded an exaggerated valuation. But they cannot do so now, in light of the weak sentiment. However, this has made international equity fund houses, which had adopted a 'wait & watch' policy, keen on investing in the same companies. According to Sunil Shirole, managing director and CEO, YEN Management Consultants, around 360 foreign private equity funds (registered with SEBI) have accumulated a whopping $60 billion with their onshore offices to invest in Indian private companies. Other international PE houses are also warming up to invest in India through the automatic FDI route. […]
Private equity (PE) funds have been increasingly focusing on Indian private sector banks, as the 2009 deadline for further liberalisation in the sector comes closer. PE funds have picked up stakes of about 5% in various banks such as Yes Bank, Catholic Syrian Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank and Federal Bank. In certain cases, a consortium of PE funds has picked up stakes of up to 15% in banks including Catholic Syrian Bank. Industry sources said though the sector was highly regulated with stringent rules by the Reserve Bank of India at present, it is expected to open up post-2009. RBI is set to revisit the regulatory frameworks, guiding the sector after 2009 and take a decision on whether it can be further opened up to foreign players. Analysts pointed out that these banks would be the first to be gobbled up by foreign banks, once the sector is opened up. “Some of these banks are concentrated only in certain areas and naturally they would also want to expand and it would make sense for them to look for either buyers or at least to enter into joint ventures,” an industry expert said, adding that investments by PE funds would also have an impact on the valuation of these banks. […]
Global investment banking giant Merrill Lynch has invested Rs 400 crore into a special purpose vehicle (SPV) floated by Hyderabad-based logistics player DRS Group. This is said to be the largest single round of equity funding into this sector. “We have signed a deal with Merrill Lynch,” confirmed A K Agarwal, director (marketing) of DRS Group. The SPV will fund the development of over 3.5 million sqft of warehousing space across the country in the next two years as well as other projects planned by the DRS Group. The logistics firm is looking to set up a Rs 70 crore Logistics Park, spread over 43 acres on the Hyderabad-Nagpur highway. The company has plans to diversify its logistics services into shipping, railways and air cargo. […]
AOL is close to selling its call center in India to Aegis, a BPO (business process outsourcing) company of India's Essar Group, according to informed sources. Aegis was one of several companies that bid to acquire the 1,000-staff call center in Bangalore. A formal announcement is expected next week. An AOL spokesman did not confirm the proposed sale of the call center. Essar dismissed the report as speculative. The Times of India reported Thursday that an announcement of the deal was likely Friday. By an agreement between AOL and Aegis, AOL will continue to give its call center business to Aegis for the next couple of years, the newspaper said. […]
Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) subsidiary, IL&FS Transportation Networks (ITNL), acquired Elsamex SA of Spain for Euro 50 million, reports Economic Times. The Spanish firm is engaged in road maintenance, operation and management. ITNL is engaged in developing and managing a national and state highway network in excess of 3,200 kms spread across nine states in India. The acquisition would strengthen ITNL`s position as a leader in the Indian transportation infrastructure industry. ( My Iris) […]
Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), the country’s largest infrastructure financial intermediary, has increased its stake in institutional brokerage house SSKI Securities by another 14 per cent to about 80 per cent, and plans to list it at a later stage. A senior company official confirmed the development and said, “IDFC recently made an offer to the employees of the brokerage firm to buy their shares and the move is aimed at consolidating their holdings in the company. IDFC will look at unlocking the value of the company in the future by floating an initial public offering.” The rest 20 per cent stake is held by senior employees of SSKI. […]
India's leading winemaker Champagne Indage is set to buy Australian Vintage's Loxton winery for 60 million Australian dollars ($54.6 million). Australian Vintage Ltd. (AVL) has signed a deal to sell its second-largest winery to Indage within six months, subject to Indage satisfying due diligence requirements. The 90,000-litre facility in the state of south Australia's Riverland is the country's fifth-largest winery. “We're pleased we're able to find a buyer and sell at a price we're comfortable with,” AVL's chief executive Dane Hudson told the Sydney Morning Herald. For Indage, which is easily the biggest wine grower in India with about 75 percent market share, the purchase of Loxton is part of a larger strategy of “going global”. Last July the company, aiming to get four percent of the global wine market by 2010, bought a listed Australian winery, Tandou Wines (renamed Thachi Wines), in the Riverland district of south Australia. Indage's Managing Director R.S. Chougule said in the company's annual report that the Thachi purchase was the “first small step towards a giant stride ahead” in a five-year plan to have production facilities in 10 countries including Australia, Argentina, France, Italy and South Africa. […]
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