Deutsche Bank has picked up close to 40% stake in Ramprastha Promoters and Developers, a group company owned by Delhi-based Ramprastha Group for $80 million. Ramprastha Promoters and Developers has been primarily engaged in developing housing projects in the national capital region(NCR). Confirming the deal, Ramprastha group director Arvind Walia told ET, “We signed the agreement with Deutsche Bank recently.” Mr Walia didn’t specify the stake Deutsche Bank has bought, but he said it was less than 40%. Ernst & Young advised Ramprastha on the deal. In the largest private equity deal in real estate sector, Deutsche Bank had picked up around 25% stake in a special purpose vehicle (SPV) owned by Mumbai-based developer Lodha Group for Rs 1,700 crore, last year. Currently, Ramprastha Promoters and Developers is developing a 200 acre township in Gurgaon. The land for the project has already been acquired. […]

Fund manager Trikona Capital Ltd is exploring various options to raise funds to invest $1 billion annually in India over the next ten years, a top official said. “Trikona intends to raise the money through public and private equity from institutional investors. We are evaluating options. We will also pump money from sell downs back into the deal pipeline,” Managing Director Aashish Kalra told Reuters. Trikona is an India-focussed fund management firm and manages the 250-million-pound Trikona Trinity Capital Plc fund listed on London's Alternative Investment Market. The funds go into India's real estate and infrastructure sectors. […]

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%. […]

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. […]

Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art has signed an agreement to sell an approximately 9.4 per cent stake to Abraaj Capital, Dubai-based private equity firm, for Rs 80 crore. Osian’s valuation, going by this transaction, is Rs 840 crore. Arif Masood Naqvi, vice chairman and group chief executive officer of Abraaj, will join the Osian’s board. Starting with its first auction in 2000, Osian’s, founded by Neville Tuli, has grown into a unique private-sector art institution straddling various sectors of art, films and lately, sports. There is Osian’s archive of visual and textual material which includes rare etchings, lithographs, maps of India, British Indian photography, popular art, cinema publicity material. In 2004, Osian’s acquired film journal Cinemaya, and took over the organising of Cinefan, the film festival. […]