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Hong Kong's Noble Group, Asia's largest diversified commodities trading company, has sold its majority stake in Noble Grains India, a joint venture with the Mansingka family, to Thailand's GP Group, which has interests in shipping, trading and hsopitality, owned by millionaire Kirit Shah. With this deal, Noble Group has exited India's vegetable oils and oilseeds sector for now. India has the world's third largest edible oils sector. (ET) […] Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the country picked up pace in June, with improved economic conditions and better availability of funds prompting corporates to dust off their long-shelved consolidation plans. According to the latest data compiled by advisory firm Grant Thornton, there were 26 M&A deals valued at $850.62 million in June, the most in a month since December. The number of such deals ranged between 17 and 21 since last December, considerably less than the average of 40-60 such deals recorded every month in 2007-08. The slowdown in deal activity in 2009 has been attributed to the global credit crisis, which dried up funding for acquisitions. Companies usually use a mix of debt and equity to finance M&As. Banks and financial institutions, troubled by the credit crunch, had turned cautious on funding deals. […] At least 43 foreign venture capital investors have been unable to begin investing in Indian start-ups because the requisite permissions from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have been delayed. Ten applications have been pending since 2005 and 11 more since 2006. Among the venture capital investors knocking at the door are Google Holdings Pte Ltd, DE Shaw Composite Investments, Sabre Abraaj Infrastructure Co. Pvt. Ltd and Kotak India Venture Ltd. Capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is the regulator for venture capital investors but it typically routes applications from foreign funds through RBI and clears them only after the central bank gives its nod. RBI gets involved because capital flows across national borders are involved. Currently, there are 129 foreign venture funds and 132 domestic funds operating in India. […] IFCI Ltd has acquired 5-per cent stake in MCX Stock Exchange Ltd from Financial Technologies (India) Ltd for Rs250crore, the company said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange. MCX-SX has sold its stake at Rs 35 per share, valuing at Rs 5,000 crore in the second round of disinvestments. It started its first round of divestments last month in order to meet the regulatory requirements. In the first week of June, the company had announced divesting 18 per cent of its equity to Indian banks. Of this, it had sold 6.48 per cent to Union Bank of India and Bank of India through a primary offering for Rs 87.5 crore. The banks picked up shares at Rs10 per share, valuing the exchange at Rs 1,390 crore at that time. […] Future Group on Monday said private equity firm Fung Capital has agreed to invest $30 million in Future Logistics Solutions, its logistics and supply chain unit. The Future Group includes Pantaloon Retail, India's largest listed retailer, and Future Capital Holding , the group's financial arm. Fung Capital is the private equity arm of the controlling shareholders of Li & Fung Group, which had annual revenues of $16.7 billion in 2008. (Reuters) […] NMDC touched an intraday high of Rs 392.60 and an intraday low of Rs 374. At 1:20 pm, the share was quoting at Rs 382.65, up Rs 25.70, or 7.20%. Govenment is going to divest stake in Kudremukh Iron Ore, Manganese Ore, NMDC. NMDC sale may fetch between Rs 10,351 crore-Rs 24,704 crore. NMDC is listed with 1.62% market float and rest stake is with Government of India. It may divested between 8.38%-20%, reports CNBC-TV18. (Money Control) […] Maytas Infrastructure the Hyderabad based infrastructure company promoted by the Raju family, may be looking for a buyer. NDTV has learnt that the board of directors has expressed concerned on the state of affairs at Maytas Infrastructure and made the suggestion for the company to be sold in its report submitted to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The communication from the board to the ministry also cites the example of the successful turnaround of Satyam after it was sold off to its new owner, Tech Mahindra. Sources said that the government is open to the idea of selling off the company, “if it helps in the long run. NDTV contacted two senior officials of the company who confirmed the move. One of the officials, a member of the Maytas board, said, “The options are open”. He did not elaborate further. […] Global venture capital firm Canaan Partners is betting big on India. Reali-sing that India is expected to grow in excess of 6 per cent annually, the VC firm would be investing as much as 25 per cent of its entire corpus in India, compared with less than 10 per cent till a few years back. The total corpus for the company at the beginning of 2008 was $650 million, and a third of it has already been invested around the globe. “India is a very imp-ortant market for us. There are many successful entre-preneurs brimming with bright ideas here. […] Sabarmati Gas Ltd, a joint venture of Bharat Petroleum and Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, today said it has concluded a shareholders agreement with four firms for private placement of equity worth over Rs 79 crore.The Gandhinagar-based company signed a shareholders and investment agreement with India Infrastructure Fund, IFCI Venture Capital Funds, UTI Asset Management Company and Indian Infrastructure Development Seed Asset(IIDSA) of Mauritius on July 1, a press release said. […] Norwest Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-headquartered firm with an office in Mumbai, has invested more than INR1.2bn ($24.6m) into publicly listed Shriram City Union Finance through a secondary market block purchase of shares in Shriram City. NVP will own an equity stake of over 8 per cent in Shriram City, the retail finance arm of the Shriram Group. Shriram City Union Finance was established in 1986, and is part of the three decade-old Chennai-based Shriram Group. It is a deposit-accepting non-banking financial company which offers financing for consumer durables, two, three and -wheeler finance (both new and pre-owned, passenger and commercial), personal loans, small business loans and retail gold loans. […] |