CVC in Exclusive Talks to Buy Barclays's iShares

CVC Capital Partners is in exclusive talks with Barclays PLC to buy its exchange-traded funds business iShares, people familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.
The price is around £3 billion ($4.28 billion) and doesn't include the securities lending business, these people said. Barclays would get warrants equivalent to 20% in iShares as part of the deal, one person familiar with the situation said, but added that the terms of the warrants have yet to be ironed out. The warrants would allow Barclays to participate in any upside in the value of iShares in the future. The deal, expected to be completed by the end of the week, would be a coup for the London-based buyout firm, which entered the auction relatively late in the process.
Other bidders for iShares included a group comprising Hellman & Friedman and Apax Partners, and another consortium made up of Colony Capital and Bain Capital. Goldman Sachs is also likely to have put in a bid, people familiar with the situation said. The £3 billion price tag is equivalent to 10 times the business' earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Intelenet sold in country’s largest management buyout

In the largest management buyout (MBO) in the country, the management team of BPO firm Intelenet, backed by PE firm Blackstone, has bought out the existing promoters, Barclays Bank Plc and HDFC. Under the terms of the deal concluded on Sunday morning, Blackstone will hold 80% in the firm and employees, including the current management team, will hold 20%.
Sources pegged the value of the deal in the region of $200 million. ET had reported the value of the deal and that Blackstone was close to clinching it on Saturday. No official confirmation was available on the deal value, because Blackstone is in the silent period. Around 300-400 employees in the senior management of Intelenet will become shareholders in the firm once the transaction is completed

The deal values Intelenet at over two times its FY07 sales of around Rs 380 crore, compared with the over 3x sales valuation of EXL (March 07 annualised) and WNS. In terms of the employees, the 6-year-old firm is the third largest thirdparty BPO firm in the country with around 17,000 employees.

Interestingly, Barclays, which will now exit firm as a shareholder, will continue as a ‘long term’ client for the businesses it currently outsources to Intelenet. It will also set up its own captive in the Delhi with the help of the Intelenet management team. HDFC, which was one of the original promoters, seems to have taken a strategic decision to exit the firm, unlike ICICI which took its BPO firm — Firstsource— to IPO this year. The value of HDFC stake has increased nearly three times since 2004. In 2004, Tata Consultancy Services’ 50% stake in Intelenet got it $35 million.

(Source: Economic Times)