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Aviva may sell 30% stake to Syndicate

Aviva Life Insurance Company India, a local arm of the UK insurer Aviva , may sell as much as 30 percent stake to state-run Syndicate Bank, it was reported on Wednesday. Consumer goods maker Dabur India owns 74 percent stake in the insurer, while Aviva Group owns the rest. Mohit Burman, director of Dabur Group, confirmed that talks are on, the report said. The deal is in process, the report quoted Burman as saying. A board meeting would take place on Wednesday where a decision would be taken on the stake sale, the report said citing Burman. […]

Batelco looks to sell 30% stake of India's S Tel

Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) is planning to sell up to 30% stake of its Indian joint venture S Tel Pvt., Wall Street Journal has reported. The sources added that Bahrain's leading telecom provider, which holds 42.7% of S Tel, has appointed an investment bank to approach potential buyers. […]

LIC To Launch Rs.500 Cr. Venture Capital Fund

The state-owned Life Insurance Corporation or LIC has decided to launch a Rs.500 crore venture capital fund exclusively for infrastructure, reports said. The company has decided to sponsor one of the proposed infrastructure debt funds or IDF and enter the venture capital or VC business to diversify operations. It already approached the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (IRDA) for its approval to be an IDF sponsor. Confirming the development, LIC acting Chairman D.K. Mehrotra said the VC fund would be launched in the next few days, adding that its housing subsidiary LIC Housing Finance (LICHF) would float the fund. […]

Encore Hotels eyes VC/PE funding

Encore Hotels, which runs restaurant chains such as Rajdhani in overseas markets and Revival in India, is looking for a private equity/venture capital partner to raise around Rs 75 crore to fund its expansion plan. “We’re looking to rope in a private equity player or venture capitalist to fund expansion plans for our Revival chain of restaurants. We’re in talks with several firms and expect to consummate the deal by the end of this fiscal,” said Kamlesh Barot, director at Encore Hotels. The company is planning to set up three more restaurants of its flagship fine dining brand ‘Revival’ this year. It currently has one ‘Revival’ restaurant in Mumbai. […]

GupShup Bags $10M funding

SMS GupShup, Indias largest social network and group messaging provider, announces today that they have raised $10 million in funding. The company will use the funds to drive product innovation, increase sales and marketing, and expand globally. Tenaya Capital joins existing investors Globespan Capital Partners, Helion Ventures and Charles River Ventures in the Series E round, taking the companys total fund raise to $47 million. SMS GupShup has cemented itself as the dominant social network in India, demonstrating that the company truly understands the Indian consumer and their needs […]

PE investments rise 25% in 2011 so far

The year 2011 has so far aggregated $7.57 billion worth of private equity investments across 274 deals, registering a 25 per cent jump over $6.07 billion of investments for the same period (Jan-August) last year, according to data from Four-S Services. The average deal size also increased from $31.1 million to $33.1 million during the same period. August aggregated $522.4 million of investments in Indian companies across 35 deals compared to $1.29 billion across 31 deals for the same period last year. The month of August last year was one of the best in terms of PE investments marked by some high value deals. […]

IFC picks up close to 11% in MFI Bandhan Financial Services for Rs 135 crore

International Finance Corporation, or IFC, has bought into Bandhan Financial Services, a microfinance institution, with the investment valued at close to 135 crore, an indication that the troubled industry is on course to attract funds again from lenders and investors. The private investment arm of the World Bank has acquired a stake of close to 11% for Rs 130 crore to Rs 135 crore in Bandhan, which provides small-ticket loans to women in West Bengal and other states, two people close to the deal said. The investment by IFC – the second such capital support by an institutional investor after the state-run Small Industries Development Bank of India, or SIDBI – will boost the micro finance institution's net worth to close to Rs 510 crore from Rs 377 crore at the end of March 2011. […]

India relaxes stake sale curb on insurance firms

India has freed Indian promoters of insurance companies to cut equity stakes to 26 percent within less than the decade previously required, a senior finance ministry official said on Thursday, marking a step set to hasten industry consolidation. “An Indian promoter can scale down its equity up to a level of 26 percent at any time after registration under the Act,” S.K. Mohanty, an official of the finance ministry's department of financial services, said in a letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. When contacted, Mohanty confirmed the letter, but declined further comment. The move, long sought by industry, could clear the way for a deal by Reliance Life Insurance, a unit of Reliance Capital, to sell a stake of 26 percent to Japan's Nippon Life Insurance Company for $680 million. […]

'India, China enjoy 68% of total emerging market PE investment'

The lion's share of private equity funds targeted at emerging markets goes to faster growth countries like India and China, with the two Asian giants cornering 68 per cent of the total invested value, says a study by the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association. According to the EMPEA, which manages a global proprietary database of private equity activity across emerging markets, “China and India together captured 68 per cent of the total invested, with USD 5.8 billion going into China and USD 3.8 billion into India.” Calculated on this basis, private equity investments in emerging market economies totalled a little over USD 14 billion in the first six months of this year. Moreover, India and China account for 54 per cent of the total number of completed PE transactions in the January-June period this year. China accounted for 136 completed transactions, compared to 142 in the case of India. […]

Aditya Birla taps PE firms for BPO arm

The diversified Aditya Birla Group is looking to unlock value for its BPO-IT business, Aditya Birla Minacs. According to two independent sources in the know, the group is exploring the possibility of tapping private equity investors for a significant minority stake in the company or may even exit the business, provided it gets a significant exit premium. Investment bank UBS is believed to have reached out to marquee fund houses and strategic investors for an initial due diligence exercise. However when contacted, Deepak Patel, CEO, Aditya Birla Minacs said: “We do not comment on market rumours.” Aditya Birla Minacs is part of Aditya Birla Nuvo, the $4-billion diversified group company with businesses across sectors, including financial services, apparels, telecom and fertilisers. In a space where scale is increasingly becoming critical, Minacs, with its focus on voice-based work and specialised verticals like auto and telecom, has not grown the way many of its peers have. According to some analysts, its focus on North America has also made it more vulnerable to the volatility in those markets. […]