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Despite the global slowdown and falling markets worldwide, Indian fund managers are increasingly launching India-dedicated property funds, which target 20-25 per cent returns here. Saffron Asset Advisors, which manages the real estate investments of NYSE Euronext-listed Yatra Capital, is now planning to launch a bouquet of funds focusing on India. The company is aiming at a total corpus of Rs 4,000 crore in the next couple of years. Starting from real estate, the company will launch sector-specific funds such as healthcare, logistics, infrastructure, hospitality and so on. The company has already launched Saffron India Real Estate Fund-1 and done its first closure of Rs 300 crore with Standard Life of United Kingdom. The company is planning to invest the amount in the next two months. […]
Despite prospects of an economic slowdown, the infrastructure sector still continues to be a big draw among foreign private equity investors. Europe’s biggest publicly-traded buyout and venture capital firm, 3i Group Plc’s ‘3i India Infrastructure Fund’ had exceeded its $1-billion target. A final closing of the fund is slated to be announced later this month, industry sources said. The response from investors to the fund, which is among the largest India-focussed core-sector funds raised so far, could augur well for some of the other big-ticket infrastructure funds in the offing, including an joint initiative being floated by Citigroup, Blackstone and State-owned India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL) to raise a $5- billion fund and ICICI Bank’s plans to launch a $2-billion fund. […]
Colgate-Palmolive (India) Limited, a subsidiary of Colgate-Palmolive Company has acquired 75 per cent shareholding in CC Health Care Products Private Limited. Hyderabad-based, Health Care Products is engaged in the manufacturing of toothpowder. The company has been manufacturing and supplying toothpowder to Colgate for past several years. […]
Solrex Pharmaceutical Co, which market sources say belongs to Ranbaxy Labs or its founders, has now garnered 9.54% stake in the Orchid. Orchid founder and managing director Kailasam Raghavendra Rao said he was determined to retain control over the company and would lean on support from institutional investors. But his options could be limited, since he owns only 17%. “I have not started this company to sell out,” an emotional Mr Rao told ET. He will be watched for his moves in the next few days. When contacted, Ranbaxy managing director and CEO Malvinder Singh said, “I have no comment to make.” However, Mr Singh had earlier spoken of consolidation being the ‘buzzword’ in the industry and his company had been on the lookout for strategic stakes in the domestic market. Orchid shares were beaten down mercilessly on March 17, when promoter holdings of about 7.5% were sold by stock dealers who had lent Mr Rao and his family money to buy those shares. A bearish pressure had caused the price to fall below a predetermined threshold, invoking margin calls that Mr Rao could not meet. […]
Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) has picked up Rs 60 crore worth preference shares in Mumbai-headquartered real estate major Mantri Realty Limited, which has operations in both Mumbai and Bangalore. Mantri Realty is an associate concern of Mantri Enterprises. The company, which has so far completed over 35 residential and commercial projects with over 3 million sq ft built up area across 15 cities, has a land bank of more than 1,400 acre. Mantri Realty will use these funds for developing new projects. Commenting on the deal, Mantri Realty chairman Sunil Mantri said: “Having made a mark in real estate sector, we will make a major foray into the infrastructure sector with our power projects. Through our subsidiary Mantri Power Ltd, a 540 MW thermal power plant with an investment of Rs. 2,400 crore would be set up near Nagpur. The plant will be fully functional by 2012 and 60% of the power generated out of the plant will be supplied to the Maharashtra state power utility.” […]
IOL Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Ltd has decided to offload 5% stake to private-equity funds to raise some Rs 80 crore. The company has already begun talks with four overseas private-equity funds based in Singapore and the US, sources said. The deal is expected to be sealed by the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal. Varinder Gupta, managing director, IOL Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals, declined to comment on this but said: “The company will inform to the stock exchanges if any arrangements are finalised and approved by the board.” Analysts believe that company needs funding for setting up a manufacturing facility for Rabiprazole, an anti-ulcer drug, at a capital expenditure of Rs 75 crore. It will make rabiprazole and its series (omerprazole, esmoprazole, lansoprazole and pantoprazole) to strengthen the pharmaceuticals business of the company. […]
After the big private equity (PE) deals of Mahesh Tutorials ($12 million by Helix Investments Advisors) and Career Launchers ($10 million by Intel Capital) in the education sector, more deals are likely in the days ahead. “Through Mahesh Tutorials itself, we have two other deals, which would be made shortly,” said Cyrus Driver, director of Helix Investments Advisors, which has about $70 million in its corpus waiting to be deployed. “We are bullish on the education sector. Over the next 12 months, it looks very attractive.” It goes without saying that the Budget announcements for the current fiscal would provide a fillip to the education sector. However, private institutions are not on Driver's radar. “They are non-profit organisations,” he said. He said he is open to investing in firms targeting students preparing for competitive exams such as IMS, Time etc. Neel Broker, principal and India head of Sterling Partners, said, “We are very excited about the sector. We are looking across the education spectrum. We would focus on distance learning, too.” […]
Financial services provider Karvy Stock Broking (KSBL) is in advanced stages of negotiations to acquire a Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC). If all goes well, Karvy expects to seal the deal by next month, a top company official said. “Four to five NBFCs have approached Karvy with proposals and the company is examining that. Karvy would finalise the target company by mid May,” the official said. Though Karvy had earlier opted to apply for an NBFC licence, the company would now prefer to buy an established NBFC having a good track-record, the official said. However the details of the NBFCs, who have been approached by Karvy, are not known. But the company is understood to be in talks with two to three south-based NBFCs. Karvy is one of the fast growing financial services provider in India and has operations in segments such as stock, commodities and insurance broking, investment banking, mutual funds distribution and depository services. […]
It is a segment that is still considered to be in its infancy, but that has not deterred investors who poured close to $100 million (around Rs400 crore) into health care firms through 2007, up from $41 million in 2006. Venture capitalists (VCs) invested a total of $928 million in entrepreneurial companies in India during 2007, according to the India Venture Capital Report, published by Dow Jones VentureSource. Companies in the health care sector accounted for more than one-tenth of this investment. This year, the country’s oldest and largest private equity firm, ICICI Venture Fund Management Co. Ltd, is upping the ante. It has launched a new firm, Iven Medicare, that will lead all investments in this sector. To begin with, the firm has finalized four deals totalling close to $70 million, with three more deals in the pipeline. It is not just health infrastructure, such as hospitals and diagnostic laboratories, that is attracting investor attention. Start-ups focused on rural health care, online medical services, design and manufacture of medical devices and specialized services such as telemedicine and teleradiology are also raising equity capital. […]
The turmoil in the stock markets is showing. The private equity (PE) investors who were considered the step-through in the investment chain are cooling their investments. Worse still, the feeling is that this may continue in the following quarters. Venture Intelligence, a research firm focused on PE and VC investments, said in a statement, that during January-March 2008 quarter investments worth $3.30 billion across 97 deals were completed. However, on a sequential basis, during the October-December quarter, 131 deals saw as much as $5 billion invested. For the corresponding quarter January-March 2007 though $2.70 billion got invested in 101 entities. […]
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