facebook-page-view
Advertisement

News Roundup: Blackstone in talks with Bain Capital to sell stake in IPO bound Emcure Pharma

By TEAM VCC

  • 30 Sep 2013

New York-based private equity firm Blackstone Group is in advanced talks to sell its 13.09% stake in Emcure Pharmaceuticals, a Pune-based unlisted drugmaker, to Bain Capital for about $100 million (Rs 625 crore). The move signals a rise in secondary sales among PE funds as exits through public offers have become tough. The deal, if goes through, will mark Blackstone's second exit from its Indian portfolio after it had sold its stake in back-office provider Intelenet to the British Serco group in 2011. Blackstone, which had invested $50 million in Emcure in 2006, is likely to get twice its investment, valuing the company at $764 million (INR 4,775 crore). ()

DLF may sell Rs 900Cr assets to Shriram Group: Realty giant DLF has held talks to divest some of its southern projects worth about Rs 900 crore, or $150 million, to the developer arm of the Chennai-based Shriram Group, said people directly familiar with the matter. Shriram Properties is in discussions to acquire land parcels and not yet launched projects of DLF, which is seeking to pare its $3.5-billion (over INR 21,000-crore) debt through non-core divestments. DLF is unlikely to exit projects that are already under construction. The company also has lock-in clauses and should retain a stake in some of these projects under the land acquisition agreements with state bodies, which complicates the value-unlocking moves, added one source who did not wish to be named since the talks are private. DLF raised INR 3,160 crore through sale of non-strategic assets last fiscal, as it looks to focus on its core northern markets. (Times of India)

IVRCL plans second round of asset sales to cut debt: Infrastructure firm IVRCL Ltd, battling liquidity problems on account of high interest costs and sluggish project execution, is selling its Chennai seawater desalination plant and Jalandhar-Amritsar road project as part of its second round of asset sales to trim debt. IVRCL holds a 75% stake in Chennai Water Desalination Ltd (CWDL), which invested around INR 600 crore to set up a 100 million litres a day seawater desalination plant in Chennai on a build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) basis for 25 years. The other 25% stake is held by Spanish partner Befesa Agua, which brought in the technology to purify sea water and convert it into potable water. IVRCL invested about INR 240 crore as equity, raising the balance money through debt. The firm is also in talks with investors to sell the 49-km Jalandhar-Amritsar section of the NH-1 BOOT road project in Punjab. (Live Mint)

Advertisement

Biyani is looking to exit more fashion brands: Kishore Biyani, India’s largest retailer, is looking at divesting stake in more fashion brands. Earlier, Future group had mentioned that the company plans to sell stake in fashion brands such as Biba & AND. He is going to look at offloading stake in more fashion brands, like Clarks, Celio and Turtle, in the coming year. Future Group has a 50:50 joint venture with UK-based footwear maker Clarks since 2011. In the India operations of French apparel company Celio, on the other hand, Future has a 49.99% stake. Celio has earlier expressed interest to hike its stake in the joint venture to 100%.As for Turtle, Future has 26% stake in the apparel brand. Other fashion brands in the group’s portfolio include AND, Biba, IndusTree Crafts and Holii. (DNA)

BoI plans to mobilise $1B via FCNR (B): Taking benefit of the currency swap facility opened by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), public sector lender Bank of India (BoI) plans to mobilize about $1 billion through foreign currency non-resident-bank (FCNR-B) deposits from Indians residing abroad. On September 4, RBI had announced a swap window to attract FCNR-B dollar funds to improve supply of foregn currency resources and stem the recent slide in the rupee value agsinst the US dollar. Deutsche Bank was the first bank in India to use RBI's window to swap fresh FCNR-B dollar funds. It raised about $450 million FCNR-B deposits from about 10 non-resident Indians and swapped it with the central bank. (Business Standard)

Tata Realty, L&T put mall projects on the block: Tata Realty and Infrastructure, owned by Tata Sons, is looking to sell four of its malls. While one of them is slated for opening, three others are expected to come up in three years. The mall set to open, and now on the block, is spread over 0.7 million sq ft in Amritsar, Punjab. Sale of the Amritsar mall is part of its plans to give exit to Tata Realty and Infrastructure Fund-1 (TRIF-1), which owns 90 per cent in it and rope in new investors. In Bangalore, Tata Realty is doing a 13-acre mixed use project, he said. (Business Standard)

Advertisement

Vodacom is in talks to buy Tata's Neotel for over $500M: Vodacom Group is in talks to buy Tata Communications' stake in South African telecoms operator Neotel for more than 5 billion rand ($500 million). Vodacom is the South African unit of Vodafone Group Plc . 

The Tatas own more than 60% of Neotel, a provider of fixed-line service and data. Reports of discussions to sell the firm have been swirling for most of this year and Vodacom's bigger rival, MTN, confirmed in August that it was no longer in talks for a stake in Neotel. (Business Standard)

DVC mulls acqusition of stressed power plants: Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) today said it has been approached by banks to buy some stressed power plants as the assets have become non-performing assets (NPAs) to the lenders. According to Sen, DVC would try to develop a model if it goes for acquisition. NTPC too recently had said, it was doing due diligence to buy some stressed power plants after being approached by the banks. (Business Standard)

Advertisement

GMR Energy to float Rs 1,000-cr public offer: Bangalore-based GMR Infra is planning to raise equity by going in for an initial public offer of its power business, GMR Energy. It is in talks with investment bankers and is likely to file a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) by the end of the month. The investment banks that are taking part in the deal are Merrill Lynch and Australian bank Macquarie. The firm is also has two private equity investors in the company Singapore-based Temasek which invested $200 million and IDFC Private Equity, which invested $100 million in two rounds of investments in 2010. These private equity deals are structured, that come with a caveat of compulsorily convertible into equity. ()

Tata Teleservices, Sistema and Aircel in initial merger talks: Tata Teleservices, Russia's Sistema JSFC and Aircel, controlled by Malaysia's Maxis, are in exploratory talks for a three-way merger to create India's third-largest telecom company by subscribers. If the transaction materialises, it will allow the companies to cut costs, share infrastructure and pool capital. A person with direct knowledge of the development said a three-way merger would be complicated and will take some time to fructify. Both Tata Teleservices, which is 26% owned by Japan's largest mobile company NTT DoCoMo, and Aircel have been struggling to pare their debt - around INR 23,000 crore and INR 22,000 crore, respectively. Standard Chartered Bank is advising Aircel on its debt-restructuring exercise.()

Larsen and Toubro technology services to go public, eventually: Engineering and construction conglomerate Larsen and Toubro, which is in the process of spinning off its engineering services division, is looking to take it public in the next few years. In August, L&T chairman AM Naik had announced the company was spinning off the unit as L&T Technology Services, but at the time said it was too early to comment on a potential public listing. The spin-off is expected to be in effect from April 2014. (Economic Times)

Advertisement

Courtesy: VCCEdge

Share article on

Advertisement
Advertisement