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India-focused venture fund Helion Ventures today announced an investment of $5.1 million (around Rs 20 crore) in Mumbai-based Hurix Systems – a online publishing & e-learning company. In addition to the funding, Kanwaljit Singh, MD, Helion Ventures and Natarajan Ranganathan, CFO – Investment Advisor at Helion Ventures will join the Hurix Systems board. Hurix has clients like the McGraw-Hill Group, Prentice Hall School, Scott Foresman, Pearson Learning Group, LG Electronics, Cathay Pacific, DHL Express, Johnson & Johnson, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Pepsi.(Business Standard) […]
Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd said it has agreed to increase its stake in Zenotech Laboratories Ltd to 45 pct from 7 pct, by paying about 2.14 bln rupees or 160 rupees per share. In a filing with the Bombay (OTCBB:BBAO) Stock Exchange, Ranbaxy said the stake hike will be via a purchase of shares from existing promoters and a preferential offer to Ranbaxy from Zenotech. Ranbaxy added this will trigger a mandatory open offer by Ranbaxy to other shareholders of Zenotech, at a price of 160 rupees per share or as determined by Indian regulator SEBI's rules. Post the offer, the existing promoter group of Zenotech will have a 25 pct stake in its expanded equity capital. Zenotech has received three Indian approvals for oncology biopharmaceuticals. It has a pipeline of a further seven biopharmaceutical products in different stages, all developed in-house, Ranbaxy added.(CNN) […]
Mauritius-based gaming firm Pallagames and UK-based IT firm Trilogix along with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) are close to picking up around 25% stake in Mennen Aviation and Hospitality (MAHL), a Mumbai-based, real estate, gaming and aviation services firm. “We have already finalised an equity deal with Sidbi while negotiations are on with Pallagames and Trilogix. MAHL has plans to raise around Rs 150 crore through a mix of debt and equity for our expansion plans. We have plans to offload around 25% equity to raise part of the required funds,” MAHL managing director Dinesh Menon said. MAHL is currently developing around 100 acres of land in Mumbai, Goa and Karnataka. The firm is also setting up around 15 service apartments in these regions by 2012. The first project is coming up at Goa, which will be operational by the end of the year. The company has also identified centres like Kochi, Karwar, Gurgaon, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad for setting up service apartments. MAHL is also setting up gaming centres along with its service centres. The firm has plans to set up an aviation training centre in Goa. […]
Internet companies are back in favour with the venture capital community. Four Interactive — the company which runs asklaila.com — has raised $10 million in venture capital from Lightspeed Venture Partners and the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). A few months ago, the company had raised its first round of funding from Matrix Partners. The company is yet to start making revenues and marketing itself. Founded by two former Microsoft executives, the firm was started in November 2006 to fill the gap for city-based information on shops, restaurants, pubs and other facilities through more relevant search results and contextual information about these facilities, in addition to an online yellow pages kind of directory listing. The site has already gone live with information on Bangalore, and has gone in for additional funding to finance its expansion into other cities. “In the US, around 7-8% of advertising is online. In India, it is not even 1%,” said Shriram Adukoorie, one of the founders. Mr Adukoorie, who set up MSN in India and was its country manager from 1999-2003, quit to start the firm with Kiran Konduri, a colleague in Microsoft and Wipro. […]
Foreign investors’ appetite in Indian brokerage companies does not seem to be abating. Balyasny Asset Management — a US-based private equity fund has invested $10 million for 2.83% stake in Prabhudas Lilladher Advisory Services (PLAD). This is the holding company of Prabhudas Lilladher, a domestic brokerage firm. With the stake sale, the holding company has been valued at around Rs 1,450 cr. While the US fund has been investing in India across various sectors, it will be the first time that it has taken a stake in a financial services company. Prabhudas Lilladher is a broking firm, which has restructured itself to offer a gamut of capital market financial services such as institutional and retail broking, capital market, corporate advisory and a non-banking finance company (NBFC). PLAD was created to carry on corporate advisory business and is also the holding company of the entire PL group. Confirming the deal, senior company officials told ET that the company was planning to go in for a second round of funding sometime later at a premium to this deal. The company is looking at additional dilution of around 10% equity to raise approximately $50 million. […]
Pawan Kumar Ruia, who owns Dunlop and Jessop & Company, has finally achieved his goal of making an overseas acquisition. Ruia has bought 30% in Malaysian firm Industronics Berhad for an undisclosed sum. Industronics manufactures display boards, rail and traffic signalling systems. It is a listed outfit in Malaysia, has subsidiaries in China, Singapore and Vietnam, and has undertaken electronics projects globally. “We acquired the company three months back but did not disclose it for technical reasons. The group has formed a SPV called Bloom Billions to buy Industronics shares. Bloom Billions is owned by two investment outfits belonging to the group,”Ruia said. The Malaysian firm’s existing promoters would hold 21% even after the Ruia stake buy. The rest of Industronics is owned by the public. Ruia said the decision to buy into Industronics was prompted by the synergy of operations with Jessop. “Jessop is an engineering giant, while Industronics is best known as a total solutions provider for state-of-the art public information system under Olympex brand and has expertise in traffic and ail signalling systems. So, it will be a win-win situation for both,”he added. […]
ICICI Bank is leveraging its size and international clout to grab a big chunk of private equity investments, by launching a fund of funds — the first by any Indian entity. The country’s second-largest bank, which has successfully sold the ICICI Bank story abroad by raising $11 billion through debt and equity during the current fiscal, is seeing an unsatiated appetite for Indian paper. Although the size is yet to be finalised, the bank is looking at eventually a multi-billion dollar fund to invest in other India-related funds — an area which has been the domain of multinational institutions. FoFs are essentially investor groups that invest in private equity funds in order to provide investors with a lower-risk product through exposure to a large number of investment vehicles across sectors and even geographies. It would also help investors to route investments in some funds, which could be closed to them. An ICICI Bank official confirmed the move, which is still in its early stages, adding that the fund will be launched by ICICI International Mauritius, a subsidiary of the bank. The Mauritius subsidiary is an investment and fund management company of the group. Both the $2 billion infrastructure fund, which is in the pipeline, and the fund of funds are being launched by the same entity. […]
Hyderabad-based emarketing solutions company Ybrant Technologies is looking at three more acquisitions — in the lead generation space, search engine marketing and a ‘different domain’ — to consolidate its position in the digital marketing arena. The company is “poised to sign letters of intents (LoIs) with two US companies for acquisition in a month”, according to M Suresh Reddy, CMD of Ybrant. He, however, declined to speak on the deal size and timeframe for the buyouts. An announcement with regard to the acquisition would be made once the company is close to reaching a definitive agreement with the target companies, he added. “The proposed acquisitions would be made at an investment of $5-10 million,” a source close to the company said. […]
Mumbai-based Metropolis Health Services, which operates one of India’s largest path lab chains with over 45 facilities, is in advanced talks to acquire a 60% stake in a London-based path lab chain. The target company, it is learnt, operates eight path laboratories across the UK. It is learnt that the Rs 100-crore Metropolis will shortly start the due diligence exercise and the deal could close as early as December. The deal size is pegged at around £3 million. Confirming the development, Metropolis Health Services chairman Sushil Shah told ET: “We are in fairly advanced acquisition-related talks with a UK-based path lab chain. We cannot share further details now.” Incidentally, Metropolis Health Services also proposes to offload about 10-12% to raise nearly Rs 80 crore to part-finance growth plans. It is in talks with two overseas private equity firms in this light. “This is one of the options we are evaluating. However, we may also raise debt from banks in case we do not get the desired valuation,” said Mr Shah. Metropolis expects to come to a decision on the private equity deal in two months. Last year, ICICI Ventures had invested Rs 35 crore in Metropolis and holds nearly 18% in the company. Metropolis is currently on an overseas expansion drive. At present, it runs six overseas facilities in Sri Lanka, UAE and Seychelles. “All our overseas path labs are run in partnership with a local player. In line with this strategy, we are interested to acquire majority ownership in the UK lab chain,” said Mr Shah. The company is also finalising plans to enter the US market. It is in talks with two hospital chains in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to roll out facilities. “While the US plans are yet to mature, we will soon set up four labs in South Africa, a network of labs in Thailand and facilities in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Kuwait,” Mr Shah said. […]
Yes Bank Ltd has drawn up plans to launch four private equity (PE) funds, aggregating a corpus of $1.5 billion (Rs5,955 crore), in the next three years. The Rana Kapoor-backed private sector bank will raise a $500-750 million infrastructure fund, a real estate fund and distressed asset (special situations) fund of $350 million each, and a $150 million fund focused on socially responsible investments. The PE practice for these sectors comes under Somak Ghosh, president of corporate finance and development banking. Ghosh said that fundraising has not begun, but he is hiring and has brought in Vivek Mehra, former managing director of VC Tech Finance, the Indian finance arm of Austrian-owned VA Technologie AG Group which is now part of Siemens AG, as PE practice head. The bank is also working on three other funds, outside the $1.5 billion corpus, for life sciences, food and agriculture businesses, and SME growth/buyout deals. These funds will potentially have a $600 million aggregate corpus and are sponsored by other parts of the bank, although they may be rolled up into a single entity. […]
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