Monday, February 26, 2007

Alagappan Murugappan returns to ICICI Securities as head of equities

Alagappan Murugappan has re-joined ICICI Securities, the investment banking division of The ICICI Group as head of equities. Prior to this, he was with private equity firm Deeva Capital where he was a partner and returns to the ICICI fold after an overall three-year stint in private equity. Before he joined ICICI Securities, Murugappan was with Cazenove, heading its Indian operations; Cazenove was primarily into equities broking. Murugappan began his career with Cazenove in London after qualifying as a solicitor in England. He holds an LLM from Cambridge University.

Murugappan was one of the three founding partners of Deeva Capital and had spent one year at Deeva. Deeva Capital is a start-up private equity firm with about $100 mn secured from international seed funding. Murugappan had left ICICI Securities in early 2004 to pursue a career in the private equity business. Then, Murugappan had joined Actis as an investment principal and was responsible for leading and coordinating fundraising activities relating to South Asia and for deal generation in India. Murugappan quit Actis to form Deeva in early 2006.

Read more in the article in AsianInvestor.net.

EDS to buy Bangalore-based software testing company RelQ for $40 mn

Bangalore-based RelQ Software has finalized a deal worth $40 mn to be acquired by IT consulting major Electronic Data Systems (EDS). RelQ specializes in software testing, validation, verification and quality assurance. It has 800 people and posted revenues of $22 mn last fiscal. It is expected to record revenues of $30 mn in 2006-07.

RelQ will help the $21-billion EDS, which focuses on consulting, application management, maintenance, re-engineering, migration, technical support and testing, to ramp up its testing practice in India. EDS has over 17,000 employees here across varied verticals.

Read The Times of India article.
Related Post: Software testing company up for sale by stakeholders ICICI Ventures and Acer Technologies

Bennett Coleman picks up 5% stake in YOU Telecom

Bennett & Coleman Company Limited (BCCL), the holding company of the Times of India, has acquired a 5% stake in YOU Telecom India Private Limited for an undisclosed sum. YOU Telecom is India's first ISO 9001:2000 accredited broadband company. Citigroup Venture Capital International is already an investor in YOU Telecom.

AV Birla Group bids €85 mn for Italian fibre firm

The AV Birla Group has reportedly made a bid of close to €85 mn to acquire Italian cellulose fibre company BembergCell. Bemberg Cell is a financially distressed company and is on the block through a corporate administered process.

BembergCell has three production centres located in Italy with 155 spinning machines to produce yarns. BembergCell is the result of the union of three companies: Bemberg, Novaceta and Nuova Rayon. The company employs close to 400 people. The other bidders in the fray include a top manager of another Italian fibre company, Italo Fabbro, and Germany-based International Chemical Investor, promoter of the brand Erika.

Read The Economic Times article.