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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. […]
Optimistic of country’s real estate sector, leading private equity (PE) players feel $10-20 billion would pour into the sector in the next three years. As much as 27% of the 50 PE firms responded to a recently-released Ernst & Young (E&Y) survey, however, expect $20 billion would be deployed into the sector, while 68% believe that it would hover around $5-10 billion in the same period. The remaining five per cent believe that total investment would be less than $5 billion. All 50 PE players rate the Indian real estate sector as an ‘attractive’ destination and 79% of them feel that India is a ‘very good’ or an ‘excellent’ investment destination compared to other Asian countries, justifying the current euphoria about Indian real estate amongst global investors. An established and preferred mode of investment for foreign investors to enter into the Indian real estate market, PE funds played an aggressive role in the last fiscal and the same trend is likely to continue to dominate the real estate transaction activity in 2007-08. […]
Private equity player Wachovia Corporation is learnt to be in discussions with Gurgaon-based the Vatika Group, real estate company, for an investment of Rs 500 crore. The investment will be made in a project floated by Vatika Group and not in the holding company. Vatika is also learnt to be in talks with another global PE major Goldman Sachs for raising funds for a separate project. A source said the group is divesting 50% equity in one of its projects for Rs 100 crore. Vatika Group executive director Gaurav Bhalla and the Goldman Sachs spokesperson declined to comment on the investment. Even the Wachovia Corporation spokesperson declined to comment. Sources say, both deals are at an advanced stage and likely to see closure soon . […]
Real estate developer Shipra Group today said it is in talks with private equity players to raise upto USD 200 million. “We are talking to lots of overseas private equity players to raise USD 200 million,” Shipra Group Managing Director Mohit Singh told reporters. Shipra Group is a Ghaziabad-headquartered company. “In the next three months, we would have raised USD 125 million,” he said. The funds raised would be used for the development of its four projects. The funds are being raised from overseas investors because domestic players are “conservative”, he said. The company would not be going for initial public offering in the short-term and mid-term, he said. (ET) […]
The Tata Group is planning to buy UK-based specialty tea company Liberty Tea to expand its presence in the global beverages market and acquire a larger share of the retail shelf space. The talks are still at a nascent stage and senior Tata Tea officials are examining the synergies that the acquisition would bring to its UK presence, the group sources said. Tata Tea's almost total dependence on black tea revenues has forced the beverages major to look at other product categories. The company is now the world's second-largest global branded tea player with a presence in 40 countries and owns brands such as Tetley and Good Earth. Tata Group sources say acquisition of Liberty Tea would benefit Tetley the most, as the 'Super Brand' is currently looking to grow in the rest of Europe, particularly in the former eastern block countries and in the Caribbean. (ET) […]
The promoters of Delhi-based IT company NIIT Technologies (NTL)are in talks with private equity (PE) players Carlyle and TPG for selling a majority stake. Promoters, who currently hold 40% in NTL, may sell anywhere between 25-40%, the sources said. This will trigger an open offer, where investors can buy 20% more in the company. “NIIT (through its wholly-owned subsidiary Scantech Evaluation Services) holds 25% in NTL with a vision to attract strategic partners, if required, and to help in its next level of growth. There is no change in that position. Since NTL has a market capitalisation of Rs 1,309 crore, a 60% stake in the company will cost around Rs 1,000 crore, depending on the premium that the investors are willing to pay to the promoters. If the deal goes through, this could be one of the biggest deals in the IT sector. (ET) […]
First came the foreign institutional investors and changed the landscape of the Indian equity market and also investing styles. Now that they have settled down, we have a new breed of investors, the private equity funds, who are creating ripples in the global market, have started to make their presence felt in India too. Recent deals like the Blackstone Group buying out the majority stake in textile company Gokaldas Exports and also taking a stake in Nagarjuna Construction Company and General Atlantic, Warburg Pincus and the Blackstone Group eyeing a larger share in Infomedia India, have started to garner attention. As an investor, it becomes paramount to understand the dynamics of the funds and be armed with the information. With global experience, PE funds can, to a great extent, determine the future of the company that they have invested in. After all, PE investing is not merely portfolio investing as in the case of FIIs. PE funds go beyond and influence management decisions and in many cases are the management themselves. […]
Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Enterprises on Friday announced inclusion of a third partner, the over $300 million, UK-based Del Monte Pacific Ltd, in its joint venture Field Fresh Foods Pvt Ltd. Field fresh, an agro-based company was a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and UK's EL Rothschild Ltd, with both holding 50% each. However, now Bharti will hold 50% share, Del Monte 40% stake and EL Rothschild’s stake will get diluted to 10%. The development is essentially seen as a back-end support to the Bharti Retail initiative, which has entered into a technical alliance with the world’s largest retailer Wal-Mart. Field Fresh will also be serving the wholesale or the business-to-business models, which means it will also serve stores like the Metro Cash and Carry and the Bharti-Wal-Mart stores, which are going to come up by December 2008. Field Fresh was essentially an export agro-based company and has been exporting fresh fruits and vegetables to various markets including UK, the Middle East and Europe. But now with the retail scene becoming increasingly attractive, Field Fresh will now be venturing into food processing as well. […]
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