Koutons files DRHP with SEBI

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.

UTI Ventures and Argonaut Private Equity invest Rs. 44 crores in Chennai-based IT company Zylog Systems

Private equity firms UTI Ventures and US-based Argonaut Private Equity are investing around Rs. 43.8 crores (around $10 mn) in Chennai-based Zylog Systems Limited (ZSL). The investment will be done through preferential share allotment. ZSL is a 12-year old IT services and outsourcing solutions company with around 750 employees in India, the US and Europe, offering services in web application, mobile computing and enterprise infrastructure management. It has a specialized product called DP Online, a depository operations and a financial accounting system.

The investments will facilitate the company’s access to clientele in new target markets. For the year ended March 2006, ZSL’s revenues stood at Rs. 257.8 crores, a 75% growth over the previous year, and its post-tax profits were at Rs. 37.13 crores.

Argonaut Private Equity has a corpus of over $2 bn and is present in India since 2003. It has invested over $75 mn in Indian companies, predominantly in the IT and other technology sectors. UTI Ventures has substantial investments in the technology and IT services sector, including Subex Systems. This is the second time that the two private equity firms have come together to invest in a single entity. Earlier, the two funds invested a total of $16 mn (Rs. 72 crores) in Koutons Retail, a Rs. 450 crore-menswear retailer.

Read The Economic Times article.

Merrill Lynch, ChrysCapital invest in Shriram City Union

Chennai-based Shriram City Union, the financial services arm of the Shriram Group has received private equity funding of Rs. 192 crores from Merrill Lynch, ChrysCapital and Cambridge Place Investment Management. The investors have picked up a 30% stake in the company by way of buying 40 lakh shares each at a price of Rs 160 a share.

The Shriram City’s equity capital base would increase to Rs. 43 crores from Rs. 27.1 crores, and promoters’ holding would come down to 54% from 73.37%. Spark Capital facilitated the deal.

Shriram City reported a net profit of Rs. 22.34 crores in the half year ended 30 September 2006 on a total income of Rs. 143.75 crores against PAT of Rs. 14.81 crores on income Rs. 94.03 crores during the same period last year. On BSE, it closed at Rs. 160.05 a share down 0.22% from the previous close of Rs. 160.40 a share.

The Shriram Group companies have been attracting a lot of private equity funding of late. Its engineering company Shriram EPC has attracted financing from TPG Newbridge, UTI Venture Funds, Bessemer Ventures, ChrysCapital are some of the PE firms that have been investing in the Shriram Group companies.

Read The Economic Times article.

UTI VF invests $10 mn in Shriram EPC

UTI Venture Funds has invested $10 mn in Shriram EPC. Shriram EPC operates in the high-end engineering services sector and offers multi-disciplinary design, engineering, procurement, construction and project management services to sectors such as power, metallurgical, pipelines for water system and cooling towers.

Shriram EPC had earlier received Rs. 30 crores and Rs. 100 crores from ChrysCapital and Bessemer Venture Partners, respectively.

UTI Ventures had previously invested in this sector by way of investing Consolidated Construction Consortium which is into urban infrastructure.

UTI Ventures has been furiously investing from its Rs. 700-crore fund. During November itself, the company invested around $30 mn in 3 companies including Koutons Retail, VKL Spices and Laqshya, an outdoor media company.

Read the Business Standard article for more details.