Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management plans to raise up to $700 million (Rs 5,230 crore) by listing a real estate investment trust (REIT) in India before the end of the current financial year, two people with knowledge of the development told The Economic Times.
This would be India’s largest REIT issue so far.
India’s REIT segment is gaining momentum and Brookfield’s will likely be the third such offering after Embassy Office Parks, which has generated returns of over 22% since listing last year, and Mindspace Business Parks, which is open and is yet to be listed.
Both the previously listed REITs were backed by Blackstone.
Meanwhile, Tata Steel's ongoing talks with the UK government to secure the future of its biggest steelworks at Port Talbot in Wales include a proposal for the UK government to inject close to £1 billion (Rs 9,587 crore) for up to a 50% stake in Britain’s largest steelmaker, reports said
Media reports also indicated that the proposal -- one of the various options being considered — could involve Tata Steel writing off an equivalent quantity of debt owed to it by the UK business. However, according to analysts, that writing-off could turn negative for Tata Steel.
In another development, the billionaire Mistry family is in talks with multiple investors to raise up to Rs 4,000 crore ($535 million) via a partial stake sale in Sterling and Wilson Solar, Business Standard reported.
Separately, the Mistry family is also in talks with Canadian financial powerhouse, Brookfield, to raise debt against its Tata Sons shares.
The proceeds will be used to reduce the group’s debt, a person close to the development told Business Standard.
Previously, the group was planning to raise funds by selling its land parcels across India, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic the land sale plan has been postponed till valuations improve.
Also, Sequoia Capital has lost principal Anjana Sasidharan, two people aware of the matter told Moneycontrol.
At venture capital firms, principals, second in seniority after managing directors/partners, hold decision-making power, make investments and are part of the fund-raising process internally as well.
Sasidharan had spearheaded healthcare and biotechnology investments for Sequoia and made it her focus area. She sits on the boards of nearly a dozen healthcare technology startups.
Sasidharan joined Sequoia as an associate in 2011. She was promoted to vice-president in 2012, and principal in 2015. She was on track for partnership, but the firm could not give her a timeline on the same, the persons said.
Meanwhile, multilingual social media platform ShareChat has raised up to $40 million (about Rs 300 crore) in a bridge round of funding from existing investors including Lightspeed India, four people familiar with the details told Entrackr.
This comes as the firm looks to provide its short video platform Moj as an alternative to banned Chinese app TikTok.
ShareChat's investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Saif Partners, Twitter, TrustBridge Partners, India Quotient and Shunwei Capital.
It is not clear if its Chinese investors such as Shunwei and Xiaomi have also been part of the round as investment from China now requires prior approval from the government.
Separately, ShareChat is looking to raise a larger round of funding of over $100 million (about Rs 750 crore) from new investors, said one of the persons cited above.
For this, it has roped in investment banker Morgan Stanley, the person added.
The company last raised $100 million in its Series D round from Twitter and existing backers in August 2019.
