Private equity firms invest record $3.8 bn in India

Global private equity firms, including Blackstone and Carlyle Group, have made an investment of $3.8 billion in 2007 so far in the country, up 50 per cent from the year-ago period.

The record volume has been reached through 81 M&A deals. Last year, foreign private equity players had invested $2.6 billion, data compiled by global consulting firm Dealogic showed.

Carlyle Group is the leading "financial sponsor" in India with investment of $777 million via two deals, including acquisition of over six per cent stake in HDFC.

It is followed by Dubai International Capital, which acquired a 2.87 per cent stake in ICICI Bank for $741 million, and Blackstone Group with $619 million inflow via eight deals.

Financial sponsor is a term commonly used to refer to private equity investment firms, particularly those engaged in leveraged buyout transactions.

Blackstone Group, the world's leading private equity firm, has acquired stake in companies such as Intelenet Global Services, Punj Lloyd and Gokaldas Exports.

The US-based Group has also decided to pump in $150 million to acquire a stake in Nagarjuna Construction Company. A move that comes close on the heels of its decision to acquire up to 70.1 per cent stake in Gokaldas Exports, the country's biggest apparel exporter, for about Rs 675 crore.

Blackstone Group manages around $90 billion of assets worldwide. In January, it invested about $275 million in Ushodaya Enterprises Ltd (UEL), a media and film production company owned by Ramoji Rao.

Source: (Economic Times)

Dubai firm buys 2.87% of ICICI Bank

State-owned Dubai International Capital said on Thursday it had bought 2.87 per cent of ICICI Bank, India's second-largest lender with more than $79 billion in assets.

The agency was now one of the largest investors in the Indian bank, Dubai International said in a statement, without saying how much it paid. The stake was worth Rs 30.03 billion ($741.5 million) at Thursday's closing price. "The strategic investment in ICICI supports the global diversification and growth mandate for DIC and its parent company, Dubai Holding...," Dubai International's chief executive, Sameer al-Ansari, said in the statement.

Dubai Holding is owned by the government of Dubai, which says it wants to build two of the world's largest financial institutions by 2015. Dubai International Capital and other state-owned agencies have bought into Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holding Plc and Standard Chartered Plc in the past 12 months.

ICICI Bank raised $4.9 billion in India's biggest share sale in June, pricing it at the upper end of a range after funds scrambled to get a piece of the financial sector in the world's second most populous country. By assets ICICI is second only to government-run State Bank of India and built its business by chasing consumer loans when India opened its economy in the 1990s and spurred rapid economic growth.

(Source: "The New Look" Economic Times )