Dealcurry: Capital Markets, Investment Banking, Private Equity

Koutons files DRHP with SEBI

dealcurry — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 07:50:00 +0000

The retail garment brand Koutons has filed its draft red herring prospectus, DRHP with SEBI and intends to enter the capital market with an IPO as reported on Moneycontrol.

This comes after a round of PE funding from Passport India, UTI Ventures & Argonaut. Passport India Investments (Mauritius) has picked up 6,00,000 equity shares in Koutons Retail India for an investment amount of Rs 210 million. Passport has been allotted the equity shares at a fixed price of Rs 350 per equity share. With this infusion Koutons Retail India has raised an aggregate amount of Rs 1,216 million as private equity since June 2006. The earlier investors were UTI Venture Funds Management Company Private Limited and Argonaut Ventures.

As on February 28, 2007, the company had 26 manufacturing and warehouse facilities in and around Gurgaon, and a network of 674 retail outlets across India.

Schroders looking to join the AMC brigade

dealcurry — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:16:00 +0000

Schroders Plc, a 204-year-old London fund manager, wants to open a mutual-fund business in India to tap demand for investments among the world’s second-most-populous nation, reported the Business Standard.

The company, London’s largest publicly traded fund manager, is considering either a joint venture or entering the market on its own.

Assets of the money manager overseen for clients outside the UK now account for 56 per cent of the total, up from 43 per cent five years ago. India’s mutual-fund market has about $73 billion of client assets, according to Boston-based Cerulli Associates.

The Indian AMC market has seen many new players establishing presence in the recent past. JP Morgan & AIG have launched their maiden India Equity Fund. Amongst the Indian names, Edelweiss has recently been awarded the AMC license. All of this is expected to further deepen the market and offer more choices to the Indian investor

Jet to raise capital through PE route

dealcurry — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:52:00 +0000

India’s largest private airline Jet Airways is in negotiations with private equity players Blackstone, TPG Capital and Temasek for raising Rs 400-450 crore reported the Economic Times.

The company is raising money for meeting the operational expenses of running the loss-making Air Sahara, which it recently acquired. The operational expenses for Jet are huge since Air Sahara is not very profitable. Reportedly TPG Capital is looking to co-invest along with Singapore-based fund Temasek, while Blackstone is considering going solo.

The promoters currently hold 80% stake in the company which will come down proportionately along with the other shareholders’ stake. The private equity investor may take 8-9% stake.

Jet Airways recently acquired Lucknow-based Air Sahara in a deal valued at Rs 2,300 crore. While Jet had paid Rs 400 crore upfront, it will pay Rs 550 crore in four annual instalments, starting next year. Air Sahara will be renamed JetLite and will be a 100% subsidiary of Jet Airways.

Zydus acquires Tokyo-based Nippon Universal

dealcurry — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 10:50:00 +0000

Cadila Healthcare today announced the acquisition of 100% stake in Tokyo-based Nippon Universal Pharmaceutical.

According to a release issued by Zydus to the BSE today, Nippon reaches out to more than 4,000 hospitals and clinics, and is expected to provide a fillip to the group’s operations in a market that is highly complex and dominated by local pharma Companies.

Pankaj R Patel, chairman and managing director, Zydus, said: “We had announced our intentions of being a long-term player in this market when we set up our subsidiary last year. Going forward, I believe this acquisition will unlock value for us as the generic market in Japan is just opening up, and post-2010 we expect this market to be a major growth driver for our global business.”

Read the article in Business Standard.

Navis Capital Partners approach Pritish Nandy for buying stake in his company

dealcurry — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 04:29:00 +0000

Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC) is considering to offer a small stake in the company to private equity (PE) funds . Navis Capital Partners is among the firms that has approached Mr Nandy. KPMG is handling the valuation and the due diligence process that is likely to get over in the next 3-4 weeks.

PNC is looking to release a slate of six movies this year, and is hoping to ramp up its production to about 10 movies annually in the next couple of years. The company is also eyeing the new media space, to look at alternate revenue streams via internet, mobile phones and cable television.

Navis Capital is a Malaysia-based PE player founded in 1998 to make investments in buyouts, recapitalisations and financial restructuring in Asia. The firm focuses on enterprises in Asia, particularly South and Southeast Asia. The firm manages approximately $ 1.5 billion in capital commitments.

PNC has just finished a qualified institutional placement (QIP) that saw the promoter’s stake falling from 41% to 30%. According to PNC’s latest shareholding pattern, Mr Nandy holds 21.79% while his wife holds around 4.32%. His daughters collectively hold less than 1%. Among the non-promoters, some firms from Mauritius hold nearly 7% in the company.

Argonaut leads $80 million funding of Cordy’s

dealcurry — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 04:00:00 +0000

Cordys Holding B.V., provider of industry-leading business process management suite (BPMS) enterprise software, announced the successful completion of $80 million equity financing representing the singlw largest round of funding for an independent, private BPMS vendor.

Argonaut Private Equity led the round with an investment of $67 million securing a ‘significant minority stake’ in the company, which could be anywhere between 20 and 33 percent.

Headquartered in the Netherlands, Cordys is a global company with over 520 employees in offices in the Americas, Europe, China and India. Cordys currently employs 250 people at its Asia development centre in Hyderabad which is the key to its ability to compete with larger incumbents,

With more than $2 billion under management, Argonaut Private Equity is a diversified global private equity fund. ‘This investment in Cordys demonstrates Argonaut’s commitment to investing in high potential business with strong ties to India,’ said Gagan Kapur, vice president, Argonaut Private Equity. With the investment in Cordys, the total investment by Argonaut in India has reached $170 million in diverse markets.

BMPS’ are the next generation of BPM software. BMPS’ pull together a broader set of tools to provide end-to-end lifecycle support of the business process all within a single model that is shared by all its enabling technologies.

Deloitte launches dedicated private equity practice in India

dealcurry — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 12:03:00 +0000

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited is launching a dedicated private equity practice in India, to be called as Deloitte Corporate Finance Services India Private Limited. Deloitte Corporate Finance will work closely with the Asia Pacific regional practice, UK & US member firms of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the rest of the DTT network.

Deloitte Corporate Finance will address the needs of the growing private equity market and provide investors with transaction-related services across the complete deal cycle from origination to completion. The team comprises professionals with significant experience in the global mergers and acquisitions and private equity services business and is led by Sandeep Gill, Managing Director and Bimal Modi, Director, who prior to transferring to India, were part of the corporate finance practice of Deloitte & Touche in London.

Deloitte Corporate Finance plans to address the needs of the fast-growing private equity market in India by providing specialist services which include due diligence, bid support,
sale and purchase agreement advisory and completion accounts work.

Read the pres release here.

London-based PE fund Promethean Investments initiates Promethean India with the Dabur Group; appoint ex-ITV chairman Peter Burt

dealcurry — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:31:00 +0000

Sir Peter Burt, ex-chairman of ITV, will become chairman of Promethean India, a new India-focused private equity fund, a spin-off of the Promethean private equity vehicle run by his son, Michael. The new fund will be listed on London Stock Exchange’s AIM market and is understood to have investors such as Bank of Scotland and Alliance Trust. Insinger de Beaufort has been appointed advisor to the company.

Promethean India will become the latest in a string of companies to tap the London markets for cash earmarked for India. It will be run by Mohit Burman, a member of the Dabur Group, which houses the Burman family’s business interests, such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and retail.

Mohit’s brother, Gaurav, plays a senior role at Promethean Investments in London, and will also be involved in the running of Promethean India, which will be based in offices in Delhi and Mumbai. The fund is understood to have a pipeline of potential deals. It will also target Indian firms in need of operational or financial restructuring and others which are domestically focused but which have potential for international expansion.

Read the article in The Telegraph.

SRIT to acquire Agilent Technologies arm OSI

dealcurry — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:24:00 +0000

Sobha Renaissance Information Technology (SRIT), a Bangalore-based software company, is acquiring Objective System Integrators (OSI), a division of the $5 bn-test and measurement company Agilent Technologies, for an undisclosed amount. OSI will provide SRIT a strong foothold in the telecom management solutions space. The acquisition will be funded by SRIT through a combination of debt and internal accruals.

OSI provides software solutions for the integration and management of communications networks and is a major player in the operations support systems in the telecom sector. OSI was acquired by Agilent for $665 mn in 2000 when its revenues were pegged at around $70 mn. As of now, revenues of OSI are around $26-30 mn. It has around 120 people with presence in India and the US. This is SRIT’s second acquisition. Earlier, it had bought Billing Components, a German telecom software company.

SRIT focuses on three verticals, namely, healthcare, telecom and enterprises and currently has around 1500 people spread across 11 countries. It has registered revenues of around Rs. 200 crores for the FY07 and is targeting around Rs. 450 crores in FY08 with Rs. 280 crores coming in the telecom vertical. Currently, it gets 30% of its revenues from healthcare and telecom segment with the remaining from enterprises.

Read The Economic Times article.

Sharekhan to sell stake to private equity players

dealcurry — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:11:00 +0000

Sharekhan, the retail broking arm of the Mumbai-based SSKI Group, is raising funds from private equity players to finance its expansion. A few private equity players have already started due diligence on Sharekhan. However, there seem to be conflicting reports as to how much stake will be diluted.

As per Business Standard reports, the retail brokerage company may dilute close to 15% stake, as per Shripal Morakhia, promoter of Sharekhan. This will result in a dilution of stakes of all existing shareholders. The company is not disclosing the amount it is planning to raise. At present, the Morakhias hold 37% stake in Sharekhan, while its employees hold 15% and the rest is held by General Atlantic, Intel Capital and a group of funds advised by HSBC Private Equity India. In April 2006, General Atlantic invested about Rs. 144 crores ($31 mn) in the company through a combination of primary and secondary investments through buying out the entire shareholding of First Carlyle Ventures. Sharekhan is looking at expanding its presence in the country through organic growth. It is among the top five retail brokerage outfits in the country with over 100 branches across 150 cities.

Meanwhile, The Economic Times says that the promoters of Sharekhan are looking to dilute a majority stake (around 51%) to a strategic investor. The company is valued at around Rs. 750-850 crores and a 51% stake will be valued at Rs. 375-425 crores. The company is said to be in talks with a few investors and is considering all options including selling a majority stake to an investor or selling the entire company, according to Sharekhan CEO Tarun Shah. It is being said that Credit Suisse is one of the interested parties.