ICICI Venture seems to have got a toehold in Karvy Stock Broking, which, sources said, is most likely to have parted with a chunk of its equity in favour of the domestic private equity (PE) fund.
While neither the value of the deal nor the size of the stake could be officially ascertained, it is learnt that Hong Kong’s Century Pacific Group, which had invested in Karvy in mid-2005, wanted out.
Century Pacific had picked up a 20% stake in Karvy Stock Broking for Rs 83 crore, which had valued Karvy at Rs 415 crore then.
Sources indicated that Karvy now values itself at around Rs 1,000 crore, which is probably one of the reasons why others opted out of the race.
Sources said they included Texas Pacific Group and 3i. Karvy’s profitability has been hit massively after the Securities and Exchange Board of India clamped down on it, alleging connivance in the manipulation of the allotment process of some initial public offerings between 2003 and 2005.
Karvy chairman C Parthasarathy, however, denied the closure of any deal with ICICI Venture.
Meanwhile, PE sources indicated that the deal is off the market now, indicating that someone has bagged it. A mail sent last week to ICICI Venture CEO and MD Renuka Ramnath went unanswered, but a spokesperson called up to say “no comments”.
Source: DNA India