Friday, March 13, 2009
Dewan Housing to acquire IDBI Bank's housing arm
Nettlinx Acquire My Guru Online's ISP Biz
The company’s board has approved for issue of 4,33,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each on a preferential basis to the promoters of My Guru in consideration of the acquisition.
According to Nettlinx executive director Vijay Bhaskar Reddy, the equity shares will be issued to My Guru at a price to be determined as per the guidelines of the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India.
The six-month average market price of Nettlinx’s equity share stood at Rs 13. The company will convene an extraordinary general meeting of its shareholders for the purpose of issue of shares.
Belgian Firm Forms JV with Forbes Marshal
Forbes Vyncke will undertake manufacturing and installation of industrial boilers and energy converter with a per-hour-biomass-burning-capacity of 15 tonnes, which can go up to 100 tones as per the requirement. The firm plans to hit revenues of Rs 100 crore within the next 3 years.
R-ADAG To Buy 51% In UK Currency Company For $20M
The deal will extend the scope of R-ADAG’s existing money transfer and currency exchange business. Reliance Capital, the group’s finance arm had in November 2006 acquired TravelMate from Swiss travel and tour firm Kuoni to enter the currency exchange business. This business was renamed as Reliance Money Express.
Last year Reliance Money Express had picked a strategic stake in public listed Wall Street Finance, which is engaged in money transfer business. Wall Street is also looking to get into domestic money transfer business which could peg it in competition with the likes of postal department’s money order business.
The UK deal will allow it to foray into the international forex business and to capitalise on the 1.6 million NRI population in the UK for money remittance business. This also mark the first overseas acquisition of a foreign exchange company by an Indian firm.
Edinburgh-based No 1 Currency operates close to 300 currency exchange outlets in the UK and is one of the fastest growing independent foreign currency specialists in the country. Formed in 1996, the privately-held firm is owned by its two founding partners David Hale and Mark McElney. The two partners will sell their shares partly to Reliance Money Express.
The current management of No1 Currency will continue to lead the firm and R-ADAG will get representation in the board of the firm.
What is interesting is that R-ADAG had been active in striking small and mid sized deals in the financial services sector even when the sector is hit the hardest due to global credit crisis. It had picked a stake in an upcoming commodity bourse in Hong Kong and is also looking to kick-start a commodity cum stock exchange in Nigeria. It already has a broking venture in Saudi Arabia
CDC to invest $10 m in Rabo's agri-fund
It is planning to invest around $10 million in Rabo's India Agri Business Fund, taking the fund's kitty to about $100 million, according to sources.
CDC would be the fifth limited partner to join the Rabo fund, which was launched in July 2008 and has IFC, FMO, DEG and Rabobank as lead investors.
An announcement for this is expected to be made soon.
Confirming the development to DNA Money, Rajesh Srivastava, chairman and managing director of Rabo Equity Advisors, said, "CDC has shown interest in the Indian food and agri sector. After evaluating the sector, they have initiated discussions with us. In most likelihood, CDC will be directing their investments through our agri-fund."
It is understood that both the partners are currently in the process of finishing the legal work.
Anubha Shrivastava, CDC's managing director, Asia, was not available for comment. However, during her recent visit to India for the Asian Venture Capital Journal private equity conference in Mumbai, Shrivastava had announced that CDC will soon close its first investment in an agri-fund.
Despite the slowdown, the Indian food and agri sector has seen interest from private equity firms in the last three months.
In 2008-end, ePlanet invested in insecticides maker Sree Ramcides, Morgan Stanley acquired a minority stake in castor seeds company Biotor Industries Ltd while the Blackstone group pick up a pie of NSL Seeds.
R
ecently, PE firm IFC made a placement in Jain Irrigation while Rabo Equity Advisor invested in Hyderabad-based agri-biotech firm Sri Biotech Laboratories India Ltd. According to Arun Natarajan, managing director & CEO of Venture Intelligence, PE investors are keen to diversify beyond the metro cities and agri-business companies provide a good way for this.
"The development of cold chain and other logistics infrastructure increases investor confidence in this sector. Given that many companies, such asJain Irrigation, KS Oils, Lakshmi Overseas and Karuturi Networks, are listed, it provides confidence regarding exit routes," Natarajan said.
Blackstone Buys 10.38% Stake In Allcargo Global
Besides, the US-based company has also expressed its intention to buy another 4.61% of the enhanced paid up equity from the open market.
Allcargo will issue 1,000 equity shares and 1,081,081 fully and compulsorily convertible debentures (FCCD), convertible into an equal number of equity shares, at Rs 934 each to Blackstone.
The company will also issue 1,513,514 warrants, convertible into equal number of equity shares at the choice of the investors from the date of issuance, between Rs 934 and Rs 1,284 per warrant.
Shashi Kiran Shetty, Allcargo Chairman and Managing Director said, “With their global reach and a pro-active approach, they bring immense value to the company. This investment will allow us to execute our organic and inorganic growth plans and continue to strengthen our leadership position in the logistics space.” Blackstone Advisors India Chairman and Managing Director Akhil Gupta stated, “We are confident that the Indian logistics sector will experience significant growth in the coming years. India is seeing buoyant economic growth, improvements in infrastructure and a rationalisation of the country’s tax structures and Allcargo is an ideal platform for Blackstone to be in this highly attractive sector.”
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Sabre Capital's Spring Healthcare To Invest Rs 250 Crore
Private equity firm Sabre Capital Worldwide has got commitments of Rs 250 crore to invest in India's healthcare space. Sabre Capital has set up a company called Spring Healthcare Ltd through which it plans to make these investments. Spring Healthcare will act as both an investment and operating company and is not structured as a private equity fund. The funds for investments have been raised from large family offices of Asia and a few healthcare focused institutions from the US, said Rajiv Maliwal, co-founder and managing partner of Sabre Capital, in an interview to VCCircle. Maliwal is also the chairman of Spring Healthcare.
The investment corpus can be increased when there are more attractive opportunities. "If we have the right opportunities we will have Rs 1,000 crore," Maliwal said. Spring Healthcare is looking to invest in mid-sized, specialised hospitals which have 100-200 beds. It's also looking at path labs, dialysis labs, in vitro fertilization (IVF) labs and also CROs (Contract Research Organizations). "We will also do maybe one or two greenfield hospitals," says Maliwal. Spring Healthcare is not looking at companies in drug discovery or pharmaceuticals space.
A large number of private equity firms are looking at investing in the healthcare space in India. But Maliwal believes that the opportunity is too large. The developing markets of China, Brazil and Korea have 3-4 beds per 1,000 persons. India has less than 1 bed per 1,000 persons. "We need to add 20 lakh beds just to catch up," he adds.
Spring Healthcare has already invested Rs 65 crore in Pune-based Oyster and Pearl Hospital, which specialises in child, woman care and in vitro fertilisation. Oyster is now planning to open three more hospitals in the region of Western Maharashtra. The investee companies will typically expand in their own regions, said Maliwal.
Spring Healthcare is looking to invest in cities beyond the top 6-8 metros in the country. The hospitals, being specialised, will be somewhat high end. Spring Healthcare is also building functional capabilities in areas like hospital management services, information technology, finance & administration which they will bring to the hospitals they invest in.
From Finance to Healthcare
Sabre Capital now seems to be moving away from banking & finance, where it has been its area of speciality. "At the moment for the next few years our principal focus is on healthcare," said Maliwal.
Sabre acquired management control of the then ailing Centurion Bank in 2003 with other investors and was responsible for turning it around. Centurion Bank was later merged with Bank of Punjab and then sold to HDFC. Sabre Capital got a 103% IRR on its investment, said Maliwal. It also set up Lotus India Asset Management with Singapore state investor Temasek, an investment which did not turn out well and was sold to Religare Enterprises last year.
It also floated private equity fund called Sabre-Abraaj Capital with Dubai-based Abraaj Capital which was planning to raise $250-300 million. The fund has managed to raise only $100 million, and has invested all the capital. The investments from this fund are in infrastructure space which include Ramky Infrastructure, ECI Engineering Construction, and Man Infraconstruction.
Maliwal believes that distress opportunities in India are not yet available. "I think distress opportunity is still not there because the Indian industry has done pretty well," he said. Businesses in India are slowing down but they do not have a big problem like they have in US, adds Maliwal.
