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Cinema Capital Venture Fund (CCVF) has got the FIPB (foreign investment promotion board) nod to bring in Rs 500 million as part of its fund-raising programme to build a corpus of Rs 7.5 billion for supporting financing needs of film companies. CCVF had applied to the FIPB to get approval for a fund inflow in the region between Rs 500 million and Rs 2 billion, says the company's promoter Samir Gupta. The induction of foreign investments will be in units of an Indian venture capital fund scheme, organised as a trust and registered under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). “We plan to raise foreign capital only after the general elections,” says Gupta. […]
U.S. solar power plant developer eSolar said Tuesday it has signed a $30 million deal with Indian technology company Acme Group that is part equity investment and part licensing agreement. Under the deal, Acme will build up to 1,000 megawatts of solar-thermal power plants in India using eSolar's technology, and could work with other companies that want to build solar plants using eSolar's technology, the companies said. Acme plans to start construction on the first 100 megwatts of a 250-megawatt project in India using eSolar's technology, according to privately held eSolar, of Pasadena, Calif. “Acme's $30 million dollar commitment demonstrates their confidence in eSolar's technology,” eSolar Chief Executive Bill Gross said in a statement. “We are committed to working with the very best partners, such as Acme, to scale deployment as quickly as possible around the world.” […]
Private-equity investors are being offered stakes in Indian companies as hedge funds and banks seek to offload assets, said an executive at 3i Group Plc. Hedge funds and banks that bought minority stakes in Indian firms in recent years are finding it hard to unwind their investments because the “listed market is dead,” said Anil Ahuja, who heads the Asian business of the London-based private- equity firm. 3i has poured more than $2 billion into Asia since 2006, and last month invested $161 million in Krishnapatnam Port Company Ltd., its third infrastructure investment in the nation. “There’s a whole new slew of transactions that are starting to be discussed where people who need the capital are offloading stakes which they hold in unlisted companies,” he said, declining to name the companies. […]
Indian food and agribusiness-focused private equity firm Rabo Equity Advisors has invested INR450m ($8.7m) in Sri Biotech Laboratories India, via its India Agri Business Fund. The company manufactures and markets bio-organic agri inputs which are used for crop nutrition and crop protection. In addition Sri Biotech produces seeds, multi-micronutrients, biologically enriched organic manures and focuses on Integrated Crop Management and sustainable crop approaches. The investment will be used to strengthen in-house R&D focusing seed research, development of new molecules of crop protection and infrastructure. The commitment will represent a significant minority shareholding of the fund, at 28 per cent to 38 per cent over the next two years through a structured mechanism. The fund will also have a proactive association with the company including two seats on the board of directors. […]
Collapse of discount retailer Subhiksha coupled with economic downturn and fear-psychosis created by the Satyam scam is leading private equity investors to rethink their investment strategies in India, mainly in those firms with significant promoter control, experts say. “The Subhiksha incident will make PE firms more cautious on how much of a free hand they allow to a promoter. Some PE funds are concerned that promoters have a wide range of authority in their companies and could look to establish structures that would limit some of this authority,” KPMG Head of Private Equity Advisory Group Vikram Utamsingh told media. Meanwhile, SMC Capitals equity head Jagannadham Thunuguntla said success and failure are a part of the PE business. […]
Aegis Ltd, a back-office unit of India's Essar Group, has proposed to buy global business process outsourcing firm ICT Group for about $128 million in cash. The $8 per share offer price is more than double that of ICT's Friday close of $3.60 on Nasdaq. Aegis said it is seeking support and approval of ICTG board to effect the transaction on a friendly basis. ICT Group provides outsourced customer-care services, primarily to U.S.-based companies, including Pfizer , Washington Mutual Inc WM.N and Virgin Mobile USA and has operations in Ireland, UK, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Philippines, Costa Rica, India and Argentina. […]
The all-share merger deal valued at about Rs 8,500 crore between the two Mukesh Ambani group firms, RIL and RPL, has become probably the 10th-biggest ever for the country and the first billion-dollar deal this year. As per the merger deal approved by the boards of Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum, shareholders will get one RIL share for every 16 RPL shares – resulting into issuance of 6.92 crore new shares by RIL. The new RIL shares to be issued as part of the merger would be worth Rs 8,478 crore (about $1.69 billion) at the current market price. RIL shares today dropped 3.15 per cent to Rs 1,225.15. This is the only billion-dollar M&A deal announced by an Indian entity so far this year. Prior to this, the biggest M&A deal for the year was Quippo Telecom's 49 per cent purchase in Tata Tele's telecom tower arm for 533 milllion dollar. […]
The board of Reliance Industries (RIL) will meet on 2 March to consider merger of Reliance Petroleum (RPL) with itself. The merger will be effective retrospectively from 1 April 2001. The merger plan was announced after the close of trading hours. In separate but identical filings both Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum informed the stock exchanges of their boards' proposals for merger. The Reliance Industries scrip closed 1.97 per cent lower at Rs1,265.05, while Reliance Petroleum scrip dropped 1.23 per cent to Rs76.20. Reliance Industries holds 70.38 per cent stake in Reliance Petroleum, while Chevron holds another 5 per cent. The rest is held by financial institutions and the public. […]
The amount of private equity investments flowing into once-magnetic India could halve this year as funds face edgy investors, souring portfolios, slowing growth and vendors still reluctant to cut their prices. TPG managing director Puneet Bhatia says a good part of the PE investments in India over the last two years, as an extended bull run dramatically ended, were fundamentally flawed. “The sustainable private equity deal volumes in this market would be just about 50 percent of the last couple of years,” Bhatia said at a PE conference in Mumbai. India drew private equity investment of $10.7 billion in 2008, according to AVCJ Research, when the stock market fell by more than half. The stock market is down 7 percent in 2009. […]
Dish TV India Ltd is in talks with private equity firms for a stake sale, a top official said on Thursday. “The talks are on but I will not be able to declare anything for the next two months,” Managing Director Jawahar Goel told television channel NDTV Profit. The direct-to-home satellite services operator is also passing on the service tax cut to its consumers,”the 2 percent service tax we have passed on to the consumer.” Earlier this week the government reduced service tax by 200 basis points to 10 percent and trimmed the central excise duty to 8 percent to raise demand for Indian goods and services in an economy facing a slowdown.(Reuters) […]
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