Thursday, April 19, 2007

Zydus acquires Tokyo-based Nippon Universal

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

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

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.