Thursday, March 8, 2007

Tata Steel subsidiary NatSteel buys two firms in Vietnam for $41mn

NatSteel Asia, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Steel, has entered into an agreement to acquire controlling equity stake in two rolling mills located in Haiphong, Vietnam at a combined enterprise value of $41 mn. NatSteel will take 100% stake in SSE Steel, which is a 250,000 TPA bar / wire rod mill. In Vinausteel, NatSteel will take 70% with the balance 30% being held by Vietnam Steel Corporation. The company has a capacity of 180,000 TPA. The transactions are likely to be completed by June 2007. SSE Steel has one of the most modern rolling mills in Vietnam, and Vinausteel is one of the best-known brands in Vietnam for reinforcement bars.

Read the Business Standard article.

PTL bid results to come by Thursday evening; M&M leads bidding with cash and equity offer

The results of the Punjab Tractors stake sale are likely to come by Thursday evening. As reported earlier, Ashok Leyland and Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) are the two leading bidders.

It is believed that M&M has proposed a highly unique offer of a mix of cash and equity for acquisition of the controlling 43.5% stake in Punjab Tractors Limited, put up for sale by current stake owners, private equity owner Actis and the Burman family. The offer works out to Rs. 340 a share, valuing the company at over Rs. 2100 crores, as against Ashok Leyland’s reported all-cash offer of Rs. 320 per share.

Both the offers demanded some guarantees from the seller on certain liabilities of the company, including its outstanding, inventories and legal tussle with Japanese firm Sumitomo.

Read the articles in The Economic Times 1 & 2 and Business Standard.

Reliance Industries to merge IPCL with itself

Reliance Industries is considering merging group firm Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited with itself. The boards of both the companies will meet on March 10 to consider the plan. The merger, if approved, would add more than Rs. 11,000 crores to Reliance’s balance sheet and Rs. 1163 crores to its profits, based on IPCL’s fiscal 2006 financials.

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani and his associates will hold nearly 53% stake in the merged entity after the conversion of preferential warrants. The promoters are in the process of subscribing to preferential warrants to scale up their stake by 4% from 50.4%. Reliance had paid Rs. 1491 crores to the NDA government in 2002 to take over 26% of IPCL’s equity. It came out with an open offer and increased its stake to 46%. The government now holds 0.35% in the company.

Post-merger, Reliance would offer end-to-end product solutions, which would give it a pan-Indian and perhaps Asian dominance. The merger could also result in substantial tax savings for the merged entity as Reliance buys certain products from IPCL and vice-versa. The merger may help Reliance increase its revenue from chemicals by as much as 4% to 48% of the total. IPCL uses naphtha made at the parent’s refinery as feedstock to make chemicals.

Read the Business Standard article.
Related Post:
Reliance Industries to form separate holding company for offshore oil assets

NYSE-listed Indian BPO major WNS acquires Bangalore-based KPO Marketics Technologies for $65 mn

NYSE-listed WNS Holdings, one of India’s leading Indian outsourcing companies, will acquire Bangalore-based analytics services firm Marketics Technologies for $65 mn in an all-cash deal to consolidate its position in the fast-growing knowledge processing arena. The acquisition will supplement the knowledge business of WNS which provides market research, business and financial research, and analytics services. The existing clients of WNS are in the travel, banking, financial services and insurance industries. With the Marketics acquisition, WNS will add capability in the consumer goods, retail, and media and entertainment sectors. Marketics was started in 2003 by a group of young professionals with backgrounds in marketing, market research and information technology.

WNS will pay $30 mn at the closing of the deal and an additional earn-out payment of up to $35 mn over a 12-month period, financing the acquisition off its balance sheet. WNS has already made three acquisitions: Town and Country Assistance, an auto claims collection firm; ClaimsBPO, the India-based healthcare BPO business of GreenSnow from the US; and an Arizona-based mortgage BPO firm called Trinity Partners. Leading domestic investment bank Avendus Advisors was the advisor to the transaction.

Read more in FinanceAsia.com.

Bharat Petroleum to raise stake in Petronet CCK by 26%

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) will increase its stake in Petronet CCK by 26%. BPCL has accepted the offer to buy the stake from Petronet India Limited, which is winding up its operations. After the deal, BPCL stake in Petronet CCK will go up to 52%. Once the 26% stake in Petronet CCK is bought, BPCL will have the option of completely buying out Petronet CCK and merging it with itself. In Petronet CCK, the other investors are Kochi Refineries (23%), a BPCL subsidiary, State Bank of India (4.99%), IDFC (19.97%) and IL&FS (0.04%). PricewaterhouseCoopers has completed the valuation of Petronet CCK and the report has been submitted to BPCL. Petronet India’s board has approved the stake sale and an offer has been made to BPCL. The 26% stake is estimated at around Rs. 13.53 crores.

Petronet CCK operates a 292 km petroleum product pipeline from BPCL’s Kochi refinery to the company’s oil terminal at Karur in Tamil Nadu. The company was set up under the aegis of Petronet India to construct and operate the pipeline from Kochi to Karur, with a tap-off point at Coimbatore. BPCL already has an agreement with Petronet CCK for transporting refinery products from the Kochi refinery till 2012-13.

Petronet India is a financial holding company in which Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum and BPCL jointly hold 50% of the equity stake. Private sector companies Essar Oil, Reliance Petroleum and other investors hold the balance equity. Petronet India was to build pipelines on the common carrier principle. However, most of the companies that were to benefit from the projects did not agree on signing take-or-pay agreements with Petronet India. With the government granting companies the freedom to set up their own pipelines, the need for Petronet India diminished leading to its plans for liquidation.

Read the article in Business Standard.

The Adani Group plans Rs. 1500 crore-IPO for Mundra Port and SEZ

Adani group company Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone Limited will raise money from the capital markets. It has filed a draft red-herring prospectus with SEBI. The issue size of the company would be around Rs. 1500 crores. The IPO is expected to hit the capital market between last week of May and first week of June. The Adani Group has appointed DSP Merrill Lynch, JM Morgan Stanley, SSKI, Enam Financial and SBI Capital Markets as their lead managers to the issue. Mundra Port and SEZ is the first company from the SEZ and the port sector to hit the capital markets. The proceeds of the issue would be utilized for the further development of the Mundra port and SEZ.

Read The Economic Times article.

Uttam Galva ties up with UK-based Liberty Commodities for Ghana steel plant JV

Uttam Galva Steels Limited, one of India’s leading galvanized steel producers, will invest up to Rs. 450 crores to set up a galvanizing and cold-roll mill complex in Ghana in a joint venture along with Liberty Commodities, a UK-based trading major with interests in metals and oil. The JV firm, Ghana Iron & Steel, will initially invest about Rs. 270 crores. Uttam Galva will have a majority stake in the JV. The joint venture company is believed to have already acquired land for the project.

The complex will include a hot-dip galvanizing line with a capacity of 75,000-tonne-per-annum that will be functional in 18 months. Later, a 250,000 TPA cold mill will be set up to feed the galvanizing unit. Till then, cold rolled coils will be exported from India and Bangladesh. The initial investment of Rs. 270 crores will be made for the two units.

Read The Economic Times article.

Bangalore-based Teleradiology forms JV with NHG Singapore

Bangalore-based teleradiology services company Teleradiology Solutions has entered a joint venture (JV) with the Singapore-based National Healthcare Group (NHG).

The joint venture company is called Tele Rad, Singapore. It will be based in Singapore and will operate in Asia initially and later spread to other markets. Both companies will invest Singapore $100,000 each. Tele Rad will market the products globally and source work to India. At present, NHG Singapore has nine polyclinics, four hospitals, one national centre and three specialty institutes. Singapore has a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, and handles hospital needs of the US servicemen both retired and those who are posted in Asia.

For the last three years, Teleradiology Solutions has been servicing NHG Singapore, through a service contract. As part of the contract, 45% of all primary healthcare records totaling 35,000 radiology scans are sent to Bangalore for reading.

For the uninitiated, teleradiology is the remote interpretation of all non-invasive imaging studies such as CT, MRI, ultrasound medicine studies and digitized X-rays.

Read the Business Standard article.

Reliance Industries to form separate holding company for offshore oil assets

Reliance Industries Limited will transfer all its overseas oil assets to a new company to be called as Reliance Exploration and Production DMCC, to be headquartered in Dubai. The subsidiary will first take over the assets Reliance has secured in the West Asian countries. Modeled on ONGC’s ONGC Videsh, the investment arm for ONGC’s overseas oil assets, the new Reliance subsidiary will be the holding company for all overseas upstream assets in oil and gas. This restructuring is being done to reduce the risks on Reliance’s balance sheet as many of these oil assets are in politically risk-prone areas.

Reliance earlier had confined itself mainly to exploration and production within India, but has now taken up overseas expansion in a major way. Armed with its success in the Krishna Godavari deep waters (KG basin), the company has been looking at opportunities in oil-rich nations including Russia and Central Asian countries. The political risks in these countries are huge and exposing Reliance to such uncertainties could impact valuations. The subsidiary was floated in the third quarter of 2006-07.

Reliance has interests in exploration of overseas blocks in Yemen and Oman. It has already made oil discoveries in the onshore Malik 9 block in Yemen. The development plan for the block has been approved by the Republic of Yemen and test production commenced in December 2005. In the Oman offshore block, where RIL is the operator, the existing seismic data has been collected and 2D reprocessing of data is underway.

Read The Economic Times article.

Raksha TPA and UAE-based business group form healthcare JV

Haryana-based Raksha TPA, India’s third-largest health insurance claims administrator, has set up a joint venture with UAE-based industrial conglomerate Rais Hassan Sadi in Dubai. Rais Hasan Sadi is a 92-year old business group with interests ranging from shipping to real estate. The JV, to be called as RHS-Raksha TPA, with Raksha holding 49% and RHS holding the balance, will seek to direct patients needing tertiary healthcare to hospitals in India. Tertiary healthcare is specialized medical services that include cancer care, neurosurgery and burns care.

Initially, RHS-Raksha will empanel hospitals in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah and later Oman for cashless treatment of health insurance policyholders. For tertiary care cases, the JV will consider sending patients to Raksha’s network of hospitals in India.

Ritu Nanda, chairperson and CEO of RNIS College of Insurance, and Rajan Nanda of Escorts together hold 60% stake in Raksha TPA and the other 40% is held by Naresh Trehan, executive director of Escorts Heart Institute.

Read the Business Standard article.

Engineering company Greaves Cotton buys German firm Bukh-Farymann

Greaves Cotton, an engineering company and part of the Thapar Group has acquired 100% stake in Bukh-Farymann, a German firm through its wholly-owned subsidiary Greaves Cotton Netherlands BV for an enterprise value of approximately of €4.24 mn. Bukh-Farymann is a profit making company and engaged in the manufacture and marketing of Farymann diesel engines and components. The German subsidiary was incorporated recently. The acquisition includes existing debt of approximately €1.59 mn. Greaves expects the acquisition to facilitate its global plans and also boost export initiatives.

Read the Business Standard article.