India Weekly Newsletter]
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
India October 10 Weekly Newsletter 2011 This document covers news related to India with a special focus on areas like mergers & acquisitions, private equity & venture capital. Volume 105, October 10th, 2011 For the period October 3, 2011 to October 9, 2011 October 10, 2011 [INDIA WEEKLY NEWSLETTER] Highlights Gujarat NRE Coke May Acquire Sick Steel Maker - Shah Alloys…(3) Dainik Bhaskar Acquires 2.7% Stake in EdServ…(4) Content Pages Sahara Group Acquires EnSearch Mergers & Acquisitions News 3-4 Petroleum…(5) Mergers & Acquisitions Deals 4-9 Hitachi Buys Majority Stake In Hi-Rel Electronics…(6) Private Equity News 9-10 Carlyle Group Acquires 9% Stake In India Infoline…(7) Private Equity Deals 10-12 Red Hat Acquires Nexus Ventures-backed Venture Capital News 12-12 Gluster For $136 mn…(7) Venture Capital Deals 12-13 Nomura Research Acquires 25.1% In Delhi- based Market Xcel Data…(8) Pantaloon Retail To Raise Rs 1500 cr…(9) Loylty Rewardz Raises $4.4 mn From Canaan Partners…(10) CLSA Capital Invests $21.8 mn In Resonance Eduventures…(11) KKR’s NBFC Invests In Coffee Day Group’s Way2Wealth…(12) Nexus, Lightspeed Invest In Handicraft Portal- Craftsvilla.com…(13) Confidential LKP Securities Limited 2 October 10, 2011 [INDIA WEEKLY NEWSLETTER] Mergers & Acquisitions News Gujarat NRE Coke May Acquire Sick Steel Maker - Shah Alloys Gujarat NRE Coke has evinced interest in acquiring sick steel maker Shah Alloys Limited. Gujarat NRE Coke holds 4.9% stake in Shah Alloys. It also holds 3.22% stake in Shah Alloys’ group company, SAL Steel, a marginally profit-making company. Shah Alloys was declared a sick company in 2010 and it owes Rs.600 cr of which Rs.500 cr is principal to lenders which includes Union Bank Of India, SBI, PNB, IDBI, Axis Bank, Bank Of Maharashtra among others. Founded in 1990, Shah Alloys manufactures stainless steel, alloy & special steel, carbon /mild steel and armour steel in flat and long products. High interest expenses on the outstanding debt, high power and fuel costs and low margins have resulted in weak financial position of the company. In past three years, company's aggregate loss amounted to Rs.284 cr - Rs.120.45 cr in 2007-08, Rs.103.99 cr in 2008-09 and Rs.60.33 cr in 2009-10. Shah Alloys owns a 300,000- tonne steelmaking unit at Gandhinagar and is operating at 40-45% capacity. Shah Alloys owns 35% stake in SAL Steel which has 1.8 lakh tonnes sponge iron unit, ferro alloy unit of 36,000 MT and 45 mw power generation capacity at Gandhidham. GAIL May Buy-Out ADB's 5.2% Stake In Petronet LNG GAIL India may acquire Asian Development Bank's 5.2% stake in Petronet LNG Ltd for about Rs 600 cr. GAIL has proposed to the Oil Secretary G C Chaturvedi, who is the Chairman of Petronet, that it can buy the entire 5.2% stake of ADB. In case other companies are also interested, the ADB stake can be split equally among GAIL, IOC, ONGC and BPCL with each buying 1.3% stake. This transaction will transform Petronet into a public sector enterprise with the PSUs holding more than 50% stake. Currently the promoters - GAIL, ONGC, Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum hold 12.5% each in the company, while Gaz De France holds 10% stake in the company. Petronet was formed by the government of India to import LNG and set up LNG Terminals. The company has also signed an LNG sale and purchase agreement with Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Ltd., Qatar for the supply of LNG to India. Petronet LNG Ltd. has set up its first LNG Terminal at Dahej in Gujarat with the capacity of 12.5 MMTPA and is in the process of setting up another terminal at Kochi in Kerala with the capacity of 2.5 MMTPA. It may also set up a terminal on Dhamra port in Orissa. ADB has been looking to exit the investment as it's internal regulations prohibits ADB from being a development lender and an owner. Petronet has signed a $169 mn loan agreement with ADB and German development bank KfW, but ADB can disburse the funds till the equity stake is divested. ADB norms also stipulate it to divest its equity holding in a company three years from the date of the company going public. Petronet's IPO came in 2004 and ADB was supposed to exit Petronet in 2007, but the deal didn’t go through. Confidential LKP Securities Limited 3 October 10, 2011 [INDIA WEEKLY NEWSLETTER] Walt Disney May Buy Out Indiagames Mumbai-based Indiagames, the triple play (PC, mobile, DTH) gaming subsidiary of the media and entertainment group UTV Software Communications, may be acquired by the Walt Disney Company. Disney already owns majority stake in Indiagames via its Rs 2,000 crore acquisition of UTV in July this year. Almost immediately after the takeover, Disney announced a delisting offer for the BSE-listed UTV that would take the group private and cost it somewhere between Rs 2,100 crore and Rs 2,150 crore ($482 million). UTV Software had 58% stake in Indiagames. Now, Disney is apparently looking to acquire the rest of the stake from founder and CEO Vishal Gondal, as well as minority investors, such as Adobe and Cisco Systems. Earlier this year, it was reported that the Indiagames management and existing investors were looking to buy back UTV Software’s stake and that they were raising funds from private equity investors. Gondal is currently a partner at a seed venture capital fund called Sweat and Blood Venture Group, which has invested in three start-ups so far – Mumbai-based Gama Entertainment Systems, a developer and manufacturer of entertainment hardware and software products for the retail industry, Instablogs, a blogging community, and Kyko, a start-up currently in stealth mode. Indiagames joined UTV’s fold in 2006, when it was acquired for Rs 68 crore. According to AllThingsD, which first reported the buy-out, Indiagames is now valued between $80 million and $100 million (Rs 390-Rs 490 crore). Mergers & Acquisitions Deals Dainik Bhaskar Acquires 2.7% Stake in EdServ Chennai-based education support services company EdServ Softsystems Ltd has said that the country’s leading Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar has acquired 2.7% stake in the company. Under this deal, EdServ will get advertisements worth Rs 15 crore over the next three years. EdServ had previously diluted stake to various ad-for-equity media investors including HT Media and Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. In November 2010, Dainik Jagran – India’s third largest daily – had also picked up a small stake in the company by way of conversion of warrants to the tune of Rs 10 crore. In June 2011, EdServ Softsystems said that it was looking to raise up to $35 million through a GDR (global depositary receipts) issue to fund its expansion plans. The firm plans to expand its e-learning presence to overseas markets, with focus on schools (K-12), CA courses, international test preps, IT skills training and personality development. The company has also tied up with EducationAndhra.com, a Hyderabad-based portal featuring educational resources and offers its online courses for IIT JEE, AIEEE, CA & IT training to the registered users of the portal. Through this tie up, EdServ plans to grow its user base to more than 3.5 million students. The education service company has also tied up with Nokia to provide its educational content on Nokia smartphones – so that students can access its wide range of content through the HumThum apps. Confidential LKP Securities Limited 4 October 10, 2011 [INDIA WEEKLY NEWSLETTER] MyDala Raises Rs 18 cr From Info Edge Mydala.com, a fast-growing group buying site with three million users, has received a second investment in the span of six months. Info Edge India, the BSE-listed company backing websites such as Naukri.com and 99Acres.com, has invested Rs 18 crore in Delhi-based Kinobeo Software, which offers online group deals through the website Mydala.com. Info Edge has said it will be investing through optionally convertible cumulative redeemable preference shares this time around. The total investment in MyDala amounts to Rs 28.1 crore. Kinobeo raised Rs 9 crore from Info Edge in April 2011 and in 2010, raised Rs 1.1 crore in its series A round of funding from PE veterans Ajay Relan and Jayanta Basu, besides two unnamed US investors. With this round, Info Edge becomes the largest minority shareholder of Kinobeo. The promoters - Anisha Singh, Ashish Bhatnagar and Arjun Basu - continue to hold the majority share in the start-up. The funds will be used for scaling up MyDala's marketing activities and geographic expansion. MyDala has operational hubs in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and is now expanding to nine more cities. It is also hiring a larger salesforce to reach 60 cities by March 2012. Currently, the website offers reaches 15 cities. The company will employ 400 by December 2011. Vivimed Announces Third Acquisition In A Month - Klar Sehen Pvt Ltd Vivimed has acquired Kolkata based eye care pharma firm - Klar Sehen Pvt Ltd. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. 30 year old - Klar Sehen operates in a niche ophthalmic segment and owns about 50 trademarks and some very well known brands such as Renicol, Lysicon-V. Care Tears. Dexacort etc, in eye care segment. KSPL has cGMP compliant manufacturing facilities at Kolkata, Hyderabad and also has arrangements to manufacture some of its products in Uttaranchal. KSPL presently operates from its headquarters in Kolkata with over 150 medical sales professionals.