American Tower closing in on Tata Tele stake

Relief at last, for the underdog Tata Tele..DNA writes that American Tower Company (ATC) is believed to be the frontrunner among the bidders for investing in the tower firm of Tata Teleservices. Sources suggest a valuation of $2 Bn. from Tata Tele side.

Tata Teleservices MD Anil Sardana says divesture in the tower company would be concluded by the end of May. Tata Tele wants to divest between 26% and 49%. According to the company, around 15 strategic investors were shortlisted for picking up a stake in the hived-off tower entity of Tata Tele.

Indus Towers, the JV tower company between Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, may also look at divesting some of its stake to strategic investors. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Idea merged their tower assets in 16 circles to form an independent tower company Indus Towers. Bharti and Vodafone have 42% stake each in the company while Idea Cellular holds 16% in it.

Kapil Puri to sell off Sparsh stake

Kapil Puri, original promoter of Sparsh BPO, now owned by Blackstone controlled Intelenet, has decided to sell his residual stake of 12%.

Intelenet is awaiting regulatory approvals for the buyback. Puri intends to offer it all to intelenet, but incase of a spillover, will selloff to outsiders.

The sell off comes as he heads to develop Spanco's new BPO business after the may2007 no compete agreement has expired. Spanco's new BPO has already clocked Rs.35 Cr. of revenue

Intelenet, itself, has undergone a key change after buying out Sparsh. It went through a management buyout backed by PE firm Blackstone, which now owns 80% stake in the company

Reports ET

Graffiti

Global M&A trend. Where do you see it headed this year? The writting's on the wall.

Graph courtesy DealBook

Yatra invests 6.69 Mn in Saket for 26.05%

CNBC reports that Yatra Capital Ltd. has invested 6.69 Mn. euros for a 26.05 % in Saket Engineers Pvt. Ltd, a Hyderabad-based residential real estate development company.

Yatra Capital said with this, it now has invested in 12 deals and has used 153.03 million euros of the 220 million euros it has earmarked for investments in the Indian real estate market.

JM buys rest of ASK in the broking JV

JM Financial took over the other 40% of JM Financial ASK Securities to become 100% owner of the same. The deal was struck at 81 Cr.

For JM the priority is "providing all financial products under one roof" while for ASK it means "focus more on the portfolio mangement and wealth advisory business in future".
ASK is awaiting for clearance from SEBI for its proposed asset management business.
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The Financial Crowd : Barclays & PFC

It is our belief that financial sector in India will become broader and deeper. We will report this in a section called The Financial Crowd. And we will cheer, when one is added in The Financial Crowd.

Reuters reports through ET that Barclays will set up 100 strong private bank to serve rich enterpreneurs. "We have a successful investment bank in India and we have a very good offshore business with Indian clients and we are building an onshore private bank in India. The economy is growing at an incredible pace,” said Tom Kalaris, the chief executive of Barclays Wealth Management.

PFC on Monday floated a wholly-owned consultancy arm, PFC Consulting Ltd. to provide services in the power sector. PFC Consulting will provide services related to UMPP, including formation of special purpose vehicle. It would also conduct bidding process for awarding projects of state utilities.

Prozone sells 27% to Triangle Real Estate

Prozone Enterprises has sold a 27% stake in its realestate subsidiary to Triangle Real Estate India Fund for a total consideration of Rs 457 Cr.The subsidiary holds stake in four projects that being developed in Aurangabad, Indore, Nagpur and Jaipur covering approximately 16 million sq.ft.

Triangle Real Estate India Fund is co-promoted by ICS group and Old Mutual Investment Group Property Investments, the property division of Old Mutual.

Prozone Enterprises, is a joint venture between apparel maker Provogue (India) and UK-based Liberty International.

ICICI prepares for a pre-ipo placement

ICICI is looking for to pre-IPO placement of equity and Global FIs such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and Nomura among others are in line.

Apprantely 12-15 interests have been received and the deal will be sealed shortly.JP Morgan is the advisor for the pre-IPO placement while merchant bankers for the IPO have not yet been finalised. Sources believe I-Sec is valued at $7.5 Bn or 30,000 Cr, highest valuation for an I-Bank in India.

In February 2007, JM Financial had sold its 49 per cent stake in JM Morgan Stanley Securities for $445 million. The deal valued the entity at $908 million against DSP Merrill Lynch’s valuation of $1 billion, when Merrill bought out Hemendra Kothari’s 47 per cent stake in December 2005.

As reported by Business Standard