The door was to open for attractive equity deals soon after the completion of the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).“Deals will take time now. We are not looking at selling stake,” said Kings XI Punjab co-owner and Dabur India Ltd. director Mohit Burman.Equity deals are expected to halt till the mud-slinging phase is over and the air clears on several controversial issues. “Nobody wants to put money into something that may not be clean. Till the issues do not get resolved, people may wait before making stake acquisitions,” said an investment banker on request of anonymity.Investment bankers feel a prudent approach will be to wait longer for valuations to climb as controversies die down. […]

SA des Ciments Vicat, the French cement major, has sealed an agreement for acquiring 51% in Bharathi Cement, it told the NYSE. DNA first broke the story on April 16 that Vicat is acquiring Bharathi Cement, which is owned by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, a Member of Parliament from Kadapa and son of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. The company will finance the acquisition through debt. Though Vicat has not disclosed any valuation, an investment banking source said the deal, to be priced around $200 per tonne, at Bharathi’s current capacity of 2.5 million tonne, could cost $500 million. […]

GMR Group is planning to raise $100 million in private equity for its power business, apart from $515 million it collected this month, reports say, quoting a top official. Bengaluru-based GMR is discussing with firms for the additional funding and hopes to clinch the deal by next month-end, Group Chief Financial Officer Subbarao Amarthaluru said. It is expanding its Indian power capacity to 5,500 MW from 823 MW at an estimated cost of Rs.30,000 crore ($6.7 billion), and is building road projects worth Rs.5,000 crore, he said. Unlisted GMR Energy, the power arm of the group, had raised $200 million in private equity from Singapore's Temasek Holdings in early April. […]

Summit Partners, a 25-year-old private equity (PE) firm that has $11 billion under management, said on Friday that it had made its first investment in India with an infusion of $30 million in agricultural biotech firm Krishidhan Seeds Ltd (KSL). The deal, which took three months to close, is also Summit’s first in the agriculture segment. Amit Chaturvedy, vice president of Summit Partners and soon to join the KSL board, said his firm has been looking at entering the Indian market for a year now. The deal took three months to close. “When it came to the Indian economy we did not have a view that we have to invest in a specific sector,” Chaturvedy said. “We just looked for high growth companies and made this investment.” Summit is the latest addition to a list of PE firms, such as Apollo Capital, Bain Capital and Quadrangle, that have made their first investments in India over the past six months. […]

Property developer Ackruti City Ltd is looking for “immediate” funding of 2.5 billion rupees and has roped in two partners for its proposed real estate venture capital fund, a top official said on Wednesday. “We have some projects in the pipeline for which, I think, we should be still looking immediately at round 250 crore (2.5 billion rupees),” Chief Financial Officer Bharat Mody told Reuters in an interview. This would be for the 3-4 new projects the company is planning to launch, he said, but did not provide a time frame. The real estate developer had tied up a total of 10 billion rupees in funding by December, Mody had told Reuters earlier. Ackruti has sought Securities and Exchange Board of India approval for its proposed real estate VC fund for which it has roped in Pacifica Fund and Beekman Helix as partners, he said. […]