Osian`s sells 9.4% stake to PE firm

Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art will sell 9.4 per cent stake to Abraaj Capital, Dubai-based PE firm, for Rs 80 crore. Arif Masood Naqvi, VCM & group CEO Abraaj, will join the Osian’s board.

The Neville Tuli founded unique private-sector art institution straddling various sectors of art, films and lately, sports.

Osian has an archive of visual and textual material which includes rare etchings, lithographs, maps of India, British Indian photography, popular art, cinema publicity material. Having acquired Minerva theatre in Mumbai in 2006, where it is building Osianama, a museum for cinema and the arts, the company has also ventured into film production.

Osian also has an art fund, floated in 2006, with a corpus of Rs 100 crore. The company is looking at a public listing in 2009.

Osian’s has 48 other stake holders besides Neville, with none holding more than 5 per cent. These include Shiv and Kiran Nadar, Sanjeev Khandelwal, Gautam Thapar, Kumarmangalam Birla, Kito de Boer, Kamal Morarka, Sangita Kathiwada, Jerry Rao, Priya Paul and Ashok Alexander, among others.
“Each has been buying from 2001 when shares started at Rs 30 and thereafter many placements every year at Rs 90, Rs 180, Rs 360, Rs 540, Rs 1,000, Rs 1,200 and Rs 1,600.”

As reported in Business Standard

Sabre Capital to acquire a company each in IT, engineering sectors

Sabre Abraaj Private Equity, the 50:50 JV between Sabre Capital Worldwide and Abraaj Capital, is in the process of acquiring two firms in the IT and engineering products space that would be finalized in the next two months. The firm has declined to name the investee companies. Sabre Abraaj Capital has recently launched the $300 mn Sabre Abraaj India Private Equity Fund I and invested around $16 mn in Hyderabad-based Ramky Infrastructure (See Related Post). The fund is scouting for turnaround opportunities; it is a stated strategy of the fund to first acquire the companies and then work out the strategy to achieve turnaround. The fund is targeting sectors like infrastructure, retail, auto components, leisure and entertainment and medical devices as potential sectors for venture fund investments.

Read the article in The Economic Times.