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Mistral Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a leading product realization company in the embedded space, announced today that it has raised $6.5 million in a second round of venture funding from Nexus India Ventures and JAFCO Asia. The investment will help accelerate the company's global expansion and also facilitate its Product and IP development initiatives. Naren Gupta from Nexus and Byron Askin from JAFCO Asia will represent the investors at Mistral. Naren Gupta is the Vice Chairman of Wind River Systems, the largest company in embedded systems software. Naren also serves on the Boards of some of the world's most innovative technology companies such as RedHat and TIBCO. Byron Askin is Senior Director and Head of South Asia and leads JAFCO Asia's investment efforts in the rapidly growing India market. […]
Phoenix Mills announced that the company will be entering into a strategic alliance with Entertainment World Developers (EWDPL) by acquiring over 42% stake in the company. Phoenix is currently building retail led mixed use development centers in Tier I cities under the brand name of `Phoenix Market City` and through partnerships with regional players in the Tier II cities. Phoenix will acquire the 42% stake through a combination of fresh cash infusion to acquire equity in EWDPL, and through the merger of certain entities that currently own equity in EWDPL. As a result of the transaction, EWDPL`s post money equity is being valued at Rs 12,500 million. EWDPL is a Tier II city centric retail mall, mixed use developer, currently engaged in the construction and operation of mixed-use retail centers and townships. The investment and partnership with EWDPL is aligned to Phoenix`s plans of establishing long-term relationship with leading pan-India and regional developers with the objective of achieving a formidable cross-country footprint as the leading retail led mixed format player over the next three years. […]
Real estate firm Puravankara Projects is in talks to sell stakes in some projects, to fund expansion in a booming market where it sees annual growth rates of 30-40 percent, a top official said on Monday. Earlier in the day the Economic Times reported that the Bangalore-based firm plans to raise up to 20 billion rupees through stake sales in five real estate projects. “We have been cognizant that Puravankara maintains a strong balance sheet. This enables us to embark on our strong growth plans,” Ravi Ramu, director and chief financial officer, told Reuters in an interview. “Until the deal is closed we cannot specifically comment. But private equity is definitely a source we are looking at actively,” he said, adding that stake sale will be only at project-level and there will be no dilution of the parent company's equity. Recent projects lined up by the company involve an investment of 9 billion rupees each in a Kochi residential project and a residential-cum-commercial project in Hyderabad, 5 billion rupees in a Chennai project and 3 billion rupees in Coimbatore. […]
ICICI Venture has picked up New Vernon Bharat’s 40% stake in Chennai-based Updater Services (UDS), India’s largest integrated facility management company, for close to Rs 100 crore. Founded in 1985, UDS manages over 50 million sq ft of space across all segments including corporate, IT parks, industrial and retail. It also offers production support services for auto major Hyundai Motor India and French glass major Saint Gobain. UDS, which closed 2006-07 with a top line of Rs 82 crore, expects to achieve Rs 120 crore for the current fiscal. A couple of other funds including Actis and Future Capital were also in the race to pick up New Vernon’s stake in UDS. Veda Corporate Advisors facilitated the deal. Earlier, US-based venture fund, New Vernon Bharat, had picked up a minority stake in UDS in January, 2006 by pumping in $10 million. While UDS has been valued at Rs 200 crore – Rs 220 crore for the deal based on last year’s turnover, New Vernon has more than doubled its investment in just two years. Currently, the organised facility management service in India is estimated around Rs 600 crore per annum and growing at 40-50% year-on-year. […]
Sequoia Capital India, UTI Ventures and ChrysCapital emerged as the leading Private Equity/Venture Capital firms in various categories at the Second Edition of the Venture Intelligence APEX Awards. While ChrysCapital topped in the Private Equity firm category for 2007, UTI Ventures emerged as the winner in the Private Equity Firm-Growth category and Sequoia Capital India took home the award in the Best Venture Capital Firm category. Among PE/VC-backed companies, Genpact received the private equity-backed company award, Firstsource the private equity-backed company – growth award, and MindTree Consulting the venture capital-backed company. The awards were given away at Venture Intelligence APEX '08, an annual conclave where the Indian Private Equity industry introspects, brainstorms on the way forward and rewards its best. The conclave was organised by Venture Intelligence, a provider of information and networking services to the private equity and venture capital ecosystem in India […]
Deal values the company around Rs 4,500 crore. In one of the major private equity deals in the country, infrastructure developer Ashoka Buildcon has offloaded 15.62 per cent stake to IDFC’s private equity fund for around Rs 700 crore. The move is of significance, as apart from being one of the major pre-initial public offerings (IPO) deals, this values the unlisted company around Rs 4,500 crore. The promoters of Ashoka Buildcon has offloaded 15.62 per cent stake of the company’s equity capital, amounting to around 72 lakh shares, to IDFC Infrastructure Fund II. The deal was sealed at Rs 980 per equity share, sources close to the development said. Pursuant to the stake acquisition, IDFC PE Fund’s stake rose to 18.18 per cent from the earlier 2.56 per cent it had bought in the Nashik-based infrastructure major. […]
Alternate assets player Kotak Investment Advisors, a subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Bank, is set to launch an infrastructure fund. C Jayaram, executive director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, said the fund will invest in core infrastructure verticals such as roads, ports, airports and power. The move will mark Kotak’s entry into a third alternate asset. It currently manages two private equity funds that split $225 million between them and 3 real estate funds with total assets under management of $700 million. “It doesn’t make sense to have an infrastructure fund that is anything less than $1 billion,” said Jayaram, hinting at the magnitude of the fund. Going by this, Kotak will have around $2 billion under management in alternate assets once the infrastructure fund is launched. Jayaram refused to divulge the name of the person hired to independently head the infrastructure fund. “These days, till I see the person physically sitting in front of me, there are no guarantees,” he quipped. […]
In yet another deal in the telecom towers sector, Morgan Stanley has picked up a stake in stand-alone telecom infrastructure company, TowerVision. According to sources, TowerVision has raised about $300 million, with Morgan Stanley contributing a significant chunk of this for an equity stake. TowerVision CEO Amit Ganani confirmed the development but refused to divulge the stake details picked up by Morgan Stanley or the value of the transaction. “The investment led by Morgan Stanley will not only solidify the company’s position and long-term business prospects but will also ensure that TowerVision will continue to grow its business in line with market expansion,” Mr Ganani said. He also added that the company would use the proceeds of the deal to increase its tower portfolio to 6,000 within the next 12 months. […]
Private equity deals are set to shrink in number and size during 2008 on the back of fears over US economic slowdown while moderating valuations will throw up good investment opportunities too, industry players said on Thursday. The year would present a more difficult environment for PEs than 2007, when booming economy and entrepreneur activity attracted record investments in India, PR Srinivasan, managing director of CVC International said at the Venture Intelligence conference. “The rush would not be as big as 2007. So, expect a sedate year ahead in terms of large PE deals.” According to a report by IndusView, an India-focused cross-border investment advisory and financial services firm, private equity investment to India touched more than $13 billion in the period between January and October last year. “Although there is a buoyant entrepreneurial climate in the country, PEs would have problems in the coming year if the slowdown in the US continues at the same pace, as nearly 95% of the PE money coming to India is either from the US or Europe,” said Varun Sood, managing partner, Capvent. […]
The momentary uncertain economic scenario, slowdown in export-driven industries, high interest rates and lacklustre credit growth in the real estate markets have raised the question of a slowdown in real estate market in India. Historically, real estate development in India has been highly fragmented. The nascent growth in our realty market, aided by copious flows of private equity, is helping the real estate development process get organised with increasing corporate and institutional participation. These developments, coupled with healthy economic growth indicators and a new-found comfort in this sector triggered a lot of activity and capital appreciation in the sector over the past few years. While the overall activity in the market remains healthy, the past 12-18 months have seen some degree of rationalisation in residential prices. Even though this might be a result of increased interest rates, decreased holding power of speculative investors and sudden flush of supply in some suburban areas, there is probably a case to admit that if not a slowdown, the marginal rate of growth certainly seems to have come down significantly as compared to the past few years. Contrary to the above, the commercial and retail sectors continue to demonstrate record absorption and bullish price movement. One may however argue that significant supply on account of SEZs and other new projects may bring about some due rationalisation in prices in these sectors over the next few years. If at all there is a slowdown, it will be a mild one given the demand indicators across sectors and the attractiveness of India as an investment destination. Also, a slowdown will be the best thing to happen for the long-term potential and growth of this market. […]
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