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While the VC/PE business has matured a lot in recent years, it is still instructive to see the dramatic transformation which has occurred in terms of where investments are going. Completely different sectors are soaking in money in 2008, compared to even 2-3 years ago. The industry started off in the late 90s, when the first foreign firms started looking at India. The new entrants focused at IT and internet, much in line with the craze in US at that time. Quite a few of the early deals didn’t work out. The business really picked up only when investors broadened their horizons started looking at non-tech sectors like infrastructure, capital goods, financial services, retail, and so on. In the last three months, for example, infrasructure and real estate accounted for 30% of PE investments. Energy, telecom, media/entertainment, financial services, and manufacturing followed. Between them, these six sectors mentioned here accounted for 90% of all PE investments over the last three months. […]
Cleartrip, India’s leading online travel agency received $18.5 million, making this the largest round of venture funding in 2008 – according to India Venture Capital Report. The company has raised a total of $30.2 million over the past three years. India’s travel portals have received a flurry of investments over the past two years, but Cleartrip stands out as the only company in this space to have successfully secured world class investors such as Sherpalo, Kleiner Perkins and Draper Fisher. These investors have collectively created billions of dollars in market capitalization by helping to build businesses such as Google, Amazon, skype and many others. With this pedigree of investors Cleartrip customers can rest assured that the company is backed by investors and a management team that believes that the best businesses are those that put the customer first. […]
Rabobank, the Netherlands-based financial institution, is planning to set up a $100 million private equity fund in India which will focus on the agriculture value chain. The plan to set up an agri-focussed fund is a logical extension of more than a century old tradition of backing the food and agribusiness by Rabobank. Founded as a cooperative of Dutch agricultural banks in the late 1800s, the Rabobank Group has some 175-member banks in the Netherlands and dozens of subsidiaries around the world that focus on the food, agribusiness, and financial industries. […]
recent funds raised seem to suggest little has changed from the past. British fund 3i Group Plc. closed a $1.2 billion infrastructure fund on Wednesday that was 20% larger than expected. Yes Bank Ltd, in partnership with Global Environment Fund, secured $20 million from the Asian Development Bank for its $200 million clean energy fund on Thursday. Last month, Helion Venture Partners closed its $210 million, which was 1.5 times its first fund. Pak-Seng Lai, managing director and head of Asia for alternative asset investment advisers Auda International Lp., says, “Our strategy will not be affected by short-term market fluctuations.” Those in the PE business who have a longer track record may even turn away investors. LPs that want to stay in India, but want to go with the safest bet are expected to turn to those funds. “The bad ones go away, and the good ones get bigger and better,” says Rahim Penangwala, who leads LGT’s PE investments in India. […]
Joining the growing list of US venture capitalists setting aside money from their global corpus to invest specifically in India, Palo Alto, California-based Trident Capital Inc. has said it will invest $150 million, around Rs600 crore, in the country over three years from its seventh fund. It expects to raise its seventh fund this year, the size of which is expected to be between $600 million and $800 million. The firm’s managing director Venetia Kontogouris said that besides India, it would also invest in China, the US, and in green (technology) companies from this fund. Trident currently invests out of its $430 million fund. Trident said it plans to speed Indian investments and expects to announce two deals shortly, but declined to provide further information. “In India, we plan to invest in media companies, health care and financial services, as well as in companies related to IT back-up of retail firms,” said Kontogouris. The top executive said India is a crucial market for the firm, and to beef up its focus, Trident plans to bring in two more professionals to tap the potential of new entrepreneurs. The firm currently has one venture partner, Dipika Chopra, based in New Delhi. […]
Royal Group of UAE and Netherlands-based GTC Real Estate are in the race to acquire 26% stake in the Delhi-based Raheja group’s engineering SEZ in Gurgaon for Rs 500 crore. It has been learnt that the Raheja group may ink the deal with either of the two groups in the next few weeks. Raheja Developers MD Navin Raheja declined to comment on the development, but said his company was in talks with some investors to sell equity stake in its SEZ. The 257-acre SEZ project is being valued at Rs 4,500 crore with the land component accounting for almost half of it, according to sources. The foreign investor will initially take 26% stake in the SEZ for around Rs 500 crore and may later bring in more funds towards construction cost, sources said. […]
The Indian port and shipping sector will see increased merger & acquisitions activity in the near future, according to Ernst & Young. The consolidation in the liner and terminal operators is on a rise and instead of greenfield acquisitions of assets, inorganic growth through acquisition of terminal operators would be seen, E&Y said in its report. Reliance Logistics buying 51% stake in Rewas Port in Maharashtra saw the beginning of private parties acquiring majority stakes in ports developed with state government concession in 2006. Later, Chennai Container Terminal Pvt Ltd saw private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners taking a minority 25% stake while Singapore company PSA acquiring 49% stake in ABG Kandla Container Terminal. Financial investors buying out terminals is yet to start, however, it has been learnt that investors like Goldman Sachs are interested to invest into India. Goldman Sachs, along with GIC, acquired Associated British Ports UK for $5.3 billion in 2006. […]
At least four large foreign private equity firms are chasing independent outdoor advertising firm Laqshya, and if sources are to be believed, Warburg Pincus has already firmed up plans to pick up 15-20% equity stake for Rs 300 crore in the Mumbai-based outfit. According to Laqshya promoter Alok Jalan said, “The information about the Warburg investment in our company is not correct. At the moment, we are talking to several PE funds for growth funding but nothing has been finalised.” A source told ET that Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston and KBC are also in fray but the deal is likely to go in favour of Warburg Pincus. Outdoor media firms have recently been on the radar of PE and venture capital funds. New airports, roads, highways, malls and emergence of organised retail have created the need for outdoor advertising like billboards, hoardings, mobile vans, bus shelters, promotional activities at the point of purchase and television screens. […]
No one’s burning rubber up the asphalt these days, at least not on deal street. With a string of deals falling through in the past few months, dealmakers at India Inc seem to be cooling their heels, at least for the time being. Compared to the corresponding period last year, M&As have dried up and their announced valuation in the first three months of this year coming down by almost 71%. And though PE deals have hit the road again after an initial stutter, the buzz in investment banking circles is depicting a different story, that of deals not going through. Sample this: Recently, the retail arm of the Future Group, Kshitij Advisory Services, which formed a strategic JV with CapitaLand, Asia’s largest property group, to form Kshitij CapitaLand Mall Management Co, has been called off. Subsequently, a deal announced in January this year by Mumbai-based shipping major Great Offshore, to acquire the UK-based SeaDragon Offshore for $1.4 billion, is said to be now under review. […]
Faced with a liquidity crunch, real estate developers are bracing up for more private equity (PE) investments as a source of long-term capital. What’s more, they are today more realistic and flexible about valuations and financing structures than they were even three months ago. That’s because other sources of funds have dried up, be it stock markets, debt, London Stock Exchange’s Alternate Investment Market or the possibility of listing real estate investment trusts (REITS) abroad. Developers prefer public capital as they do not have to give up management control. Two developers secured $101 million (Rs 400 crore) from two private equity firms last Thursday. The Delhi-based Parsvnath Developers received $47 million (Rs 186 crore) from two Saffron Group funds to develop a residential and shopping complex on a now-defunct bus depot at Kurla in central Mumbai. The Mumbai-based Lodha Group got $54 million from a HDFC-sponsored, Mauritius-based fund. The fund will take a 45 per cent stake in a special purpose vehicle, which will develop projects in Hyderabad, Lodha said in Mumbai on Thursday. […]
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