Wednesday, December 27, 2006

M&M, TAFE eye Actis’ 29% in Punjab Tractors

Actis’ 29% stake in India’s most profitable farm tractors and forklifts company, Punjab Tractors Limited (PTL), is probably up for sale. Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) and Tractor & Farm Equipment (TAFE) seem to be the interested parties. The Burman family of the Dabur group, which holds 14% in PTL, may also exit along with Actis.

Actis’ stake is valued at Rs. 410 crores, but the buyer may also have to pay a control premium. It would also have to make an open offer to the remaining shareholders.

Read the complete Economic Times article.

3i Infotech eyes companies with products in insurance

3i Infotech is looking for acquiring companies with software products in the life insurance or trade finance verticals. 3i Infotech, formerly known as ICICI Infotech, is a leading provider of software and IT solutions, including packaged applications for the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, and retail and distribution industries. It has already made 19 acquisitions so far, having bought, earlier this year, majority stake in Professional Access and E-Enable.

The company is also keen to acquire domestic Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms that offer expertise cheque truncation, credit verification, soft recovery and soft collections. The company is in preliminary stages of talks with potential candidates.

For more details, read The Economic Times article.

ICICI Ventures plans bigger investments

Dec 26, 2006

ICICI Ventures, the private equity arm of ICICI Bank, and one of India’s leading private equity firms, is planning to raise the size of investments, to counter competition from other PE firms, banks, securities markets, hedge funds and other investment sources to fund Indian companies as accelerating economic growth pushes up stock valuations. Where earlier the size of investments would range around $25-30 mn, the firm now intends to buy stake as large as $125 mn.

More on this on Bloomberg.com.

Mumbai-based Rama Pulp and Paper acquires newsprint company

Mumbai-based cultural and specialty paper maker Rama Pulp and Papers is acquiring a newsprint company for Rs. 60 crores. The deal will be funded by an undisclosed foreign fund. Rama Pulp has declined to name the target company and the foreign fund owing to confidentiality clauses.

The fund will provide Rs. 50 crores for the acquisition while the rest will come from the company’s internal accruals.

Opportunities in newsprint and its low costs have attracted foreign players too, with majors such as Stora Enso and UBA mulling options to build a plant in India mainly to cater to the local market.

Of late, foreign funds’ interest in the Indian paper sector has been growing steadily. IFC, the investment arm of the World Bank is already in collaboration with West Coast Paper, JK Paper and AP Paper. Other firms like Goldman Sachs are more keen on picking up equity stakes in Indian paper companies as an 8% growth in the local economy makes paper all the more attractive.

Read the complete article from The Economic Times.

Citigroup proposes $5 bn infrastructure fund; to tie up with IDFC

Global financial services major Citigroup is in talks with the Indian government to start a $5 bn debt and equity infrastructure fund in partnership with Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC). Blackstone had also proposed a fund for infrastructure in India, the size of which is not known. Citigroup has proposed a total fund of $5 bn, of which $2 bn is intended to be equity and $3 bn for debt. Citigroup would operate the fund in association with IDFC. Citigroup CEO Charles Prince had proposed the fund at a meeting with Finance Minister P Chidambaram in New York earlier this year.

More details on The Economic Times.

Delhi-based lighting equipment company scouting for acquisitions in the US

Indo Asian Fusegear Limited (IAFL), a Delhi-based switchgear and lighting equipment maker is looking for acquisition opportunities in the US in the range of Rs. 100-150 crores. The company has created a war chest of Rs. 100 crores for financing the acquisition. However, the company has declined to mention names of parties it is involved in talks with, saying that it is early to divulge details.

For more details, read The Economic Times and Business Standard articles.

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.

IDBI Bank plans Rs. 1000-crore private equity fund

IDBI Bank is planning to float a private equity fund. The size of the fund will be Rs. 1000 crores and will invest in mid-sized companies, particularly those in the power sector.

The capital markets division of IDBI, IDBI Capital Markets, already has a Rs. 50-crore private equity fund rolling, raised from internal accruals. It made a Rs. 10 crore-investment to pick up about 5% stake in Coimbatore-based textiles company Vijayeshwari Textiles.

Read the articles from The Economic Times, The Financial Express and Zee News.

Yes Bank gets Rs. 120 crores from Swiss Re

Leading global re-insurer, the Zurich-based Swiss Reinsurance Company (Swiss Re) has bought a 3.57% strategic stake in the domestic private sector Yes Bank. Swiss Re has provided an equity infusion of Rs. 120 crores ($26.5 mn) by way of private placement. The paid-up share capital of the bank has now increased to Rs. 280 crores and the total capital base, including Tier-I & Tier-II capital, has now crossed the Rs. 1,000-crore mark.

Post- issue, the promoters’ holding will come down to 37.2% from 38.6%. Rabobank’s stake will fall to 19.3% from 20% and the holding of private equity investors including Citicorp International, Russell AIF and ChrysCapital to 17.9% from 18.5%.

Yes Bank plans to raise $150 mn of capital by March 2007.

For more, read the following Business Standard article.

Trikona Capital to invest $18 mn in Fortis Healthcare

Trikona Capital is investing to the tune of $18 mn in Fortis Healthcare, a company promoted by the founders of Ranbaxy Laboratories. Earlier, George Soros’ Soros Private Equity Partners and Blue Ridge Capital were believed to have invested $50 mn in Fortis to buy a 10% stake in the company. Fortis has filed for an IPO and intends to raise Rs. 730 crores from the issue.

Fortis needs the funds to further its expansion plans as well as to write-off the debt it had incurred while acquiring Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre. Fortis Healthcare has chalked out some meg-expansion plans, partly through acquisitions, which will require investments of Rs. 2250 crores by 2010.

Trikona Capital is a real estate-focused private equity firm; it is planning to invest around $1 bn in the Indian market in the next one year. So far, it has made investments of up to $150 million in India. Apart from Fortis, Trikona’s investments include a minority stake in IL&FS Transportation and Networks for $10 million, $20 million in an integrated township project in Thane, $22 million in a residential project in Mumbai and around $55 million in an IT park in Greater Noida. The fund also has partnerships with HDFC and IL&FS to make investments in India.

Read The Economic Times article.

Seagate to acquire EVault Inc.


Seagate Technology LLC, the world's largest maker of hard-disk drives, has agreed to acquire EVault Inc., an online data storage service provider, for about $185 million in cash, as per a news release issued by the Company


Seagate, a $9.2 billion company that's based in the Cayman Islands but operates out of Scotts Valley, is expanding beyond its core business of making the disk drives that have long powered computers and more recently, electronics as well.


The move marks the biggest step yet by the largest maker of computer hard drives to boost its nascent storage services business. It would widen Seagate's service offerings in a growing arena fueled by the demands of companies and individuals to store and keep backups of massive amounts of digital data.


EVault, a privately held company based in Emeryville, specializes in providing automatic backup and data recovery services to small- to medium-sized businesses. It was founded in 1997, has more than 250 employees and serves more than 8,500 customers worldwide.

EVault is the most recent acquisition in the broader storage solutions area and the third for Seagate in the area of services. In 2005, it acquired Mirra Inc., a maker of personal servers that allow consumers or small businesses to easily upload and share files, and recover them later if needed. Seagate also acquired ActionFront Data Recovery Labs, a provider of professional data recovery services.

The deal with EVault is expected to close in Seagate's fiscal third quarter following regulatory approvals, the company said.Read article from Business Standard