Saturday, March 15, 2008

Rahejas to raise Rs.530 Cr. from PE funds

New Delhi based Rahejas plan to raise Rs.530 Cr. from PE funds against 26% equity in their upcoming Gurgaon based engineering SEZ.
MD Navin Raheja said the group was talking to Royal Group of Abu Dhabi, Ford Capital, Ascendas, Blackstone & Carlyle with E&Y as consultant. He said " Though the deal is not finalised we prefer Royal group because of their bigger projects, construction techniques, equipment & manpower"

The JV will be as an SPV to be listed later. The company plans to invest Rs 4,535 crore in the SEZ to be funded with a mix of equity, debt and internal accruals. It has plans to build country's tallest building here. Since haryana faces power shortage, the company is planning a 200MW captive powerplant and is in talks with Adani & Lanco.

Quippo, Oil & Gas Service Sector and A New PE Hotbed

Quippo Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of Quippo Infrastructure Equipment promoted by SREI Infrastructure Finance, is planning to put Rs.2400 Cr. over next two years in buying onshore rigs, off-shore supply vessels and pipe-laying barges.
Quippo Oil & Gas currently owns two onshore drilling rigs and one offshore pipeline-laying barge (bought for $120 Mn.) The plans are to deploy these to India & Malaysia. This Business Standard article reemphasises a global trend in O&G service sector.

There is a shortage of rigs across the world and its impact is being felt in India as well. The Oil & Gas service sector market is booming globally with M&A/PE activity.

Globally PE firms are active in the O&G service market due to crash and easing valuations, specially in the mid-market. Tight credit markets have put brake on largecap deals but middle market is growing 50%.

Richard Spears, VP of energy analysis and advisory firm Spears & Associates Inc. says "Right now, we have projects for 15 deals under way, when last year, at any one time, we had six or seven." Investors and companies hire Spears to analyze businesses during the due diligence process of a transaction. Spears said his private equity clients were sizing up businesses in well completion services, land and offshore drilling and production, and other parts of the oilfield services sector.

Some of the recent deals in the sector include First Reserve Corp buyout CHC Helicopter Corp for $1.5 Bn., US buyout firm Castle Harlan's Anchor Drilling Fluids US for $250 Mn.

Analyst Bill Herbert of research firm Simmons & Co said expects PE firms to snap up more small-cap oilfield service companies with either international franchises or technology that can be exported to international markets.

It will not be surprising to see some of the Infrastructure Funds moving in, on the sector.

RBI lifts PwC Ban

RBI lifted ban on PwC auditing banks & NBFCs.
PwC was banned from auditing banks and NBFCs following its association with the now failed Global Trust Bank as its auditor for financial years 2002 and 2003. RBI had found that PwC underprovided for NPAs.

GTB eroded networth due to over exposure to Capital Markets. It tried to make up for the capital by roping in Newbridge Capital, but RBI disapproved on grounds of questionable source of money. Since bank was not able to make up for capital, it was put under moratorium and then a quick takeover by OCB.

Blackstone eyeing 10% in Ennore Foundries

Blackstone & Primus Capital are racing to acquire a 10% stake in Ennore foundries, now renamed Hinduja Foundries.

Hinduja's have decided to sell 10% of the their holding to raise $80-100 Mn. for partfinancing proposed capex.

The Sun Also Sets : PE deals falling through

The chill is moving deeper down the spine. This HT article points out that southbound market is taking a lot of valuations and some of the deals with it. Down.
With 14 PE deals falling through in last 3 months & big 3 in last last month, Feb. PE deals are 55% lower then Jan'08.

The 3 big ones to go down are ICICI Venture-Jaypee Infratech deal, Rs 1200-crore Blackstone-Eenadu group deal and Rs 250-crore Future capital-DishTV deal. The Jaypee deal is shaved from 3200 to 1000 Cr.
PE funds closed over 27 deals in Feb. valued around $1.48 billion, according to a Grant Thornton study. India Inc recorded deals worth $5.06 billion in 116 M&A and PE deals in Jan.
Compared to Feb'07, there was a 50 % rise in PE deals this Feb.