Venture Intelligence Blog - Tracking Investments and Business Opportunities in India

PE/VC firms bullish on Healthcare investments: Report

2009-07-13T03:10:00.000-07:00

A new report released by research firm Venture Intelligence reveals PE investors are likely to focus specifically on segments like Diagnostic Services, Medical Devices, Hospital Chains and Wellness Products.Private Equity and Venture Capital investors, who have invested over $2 billion into Healthcare & Life Sciences (HLS) companies in India over the last five years, are keen to step up the pace

Can Indian business houses succeed at managing PE funds?

2009-07-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

Shailendra Bhandari, who has just quit as head of Tata Capital's Private Equity business, recently wrote an article in the Economic Times on the opportunities and challenges for Indian business groups launching private equity funds. So where would the differentiation come from? The answer to this, perhaps, lies in four strengths enjoyed to various degrees by most conglomerates: Track-record,

Deal Alert: Inventus Capital invests in online bus ticketing service redBus

2009-07-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

Edited extract from press release: Inventus Capital Partners has announced that it led the second round investment in Pilani Soft Labs Private Limited, the company behind India’s leading bus ticketing service, redBus (www.redBus.in). Parag Dhol from Inventus Advisory Services will join redBus’ board.The round also received participation from first round investor Seedfund.redBus, which

"Currency movements to dictate endgame of global market turmoil"

2009-07-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

Manish Chokhani of Enam Securities says in an interview to CNBC-TV 18 that China's actions on its currency will dictate the end game of the current global stock market turmoil...it is Japan, China and the oil countries which fund the US. The US currency is not something that someone is wanting to accept longer-term. At the same time while the oil producing countries can adjust their oil prices up

Shariah Compliance for PE Funds

2009-07-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a note on the above topic prepared by our knowledge partnersThere has been a growing demand from investors domiciled in the Gulf Co-operative Council region for investment portfolios to include Shariah compliant instruments. With growing credit crunch, LP defaults in other jurisdictions and other factors that have emerged from the global financial turmoil, the fund managers are

Deal Alert: GVFL invests Rs. 5-Cr in chemicals maker Sebacic India

2009-07-01T05:59:00.000-07:00

Edited extracts from the Press Release:VC firm GVFL has acquired a 24.5% stake in return for a Rs. 5 crore investment in chemicals manufacturing firm Sebacic India. The investment was made from GVFL's Rs. 500 crore SME Technology Venture Fund.Gujarat-based Sebacic India's proposed plant in Vadodara will have the an installed capacity of 10000 MTPA of Sebacic Acid, the largest in India. The main

Will Blackstone succeed with Gokaldas and Intelenet?

2009-06-30T05:59:00.000-07:00

Forbes India has an article on the Blackstone Group's investments in India, especially its big bets on textiles firm Gokaldas Exports and BPO firm Intelenet.Blackstone investments in India have been battered by the economic and markets meltdown. Its cumulative investments of $730 million are now worth only 30 percent of the original value. Gokaldas has lost 71 percent of its value since

Fund Raising Alert: Carlyle raises $1-B Asia Fund

2009-06-30T04:39:00.000-07:00

Edited extracts from the Press Release:Global private equity firm The Carlyle Group has successfully closed its fourth Asian growth capital fund, Carlyle Asia Growth Partners IV (CAGP IV), a sector-agnostic growth capital fund which invests in China, India, Korea and other key Asian markets. The fund raised $1.04 billion in 14 months from a broad geographical range of investors.CAGP IV is more

Winners & Losers in US Bailout & Bankruptcy Deals

2009-06-29T05:28:00.000-07:00

TheDeal.com has an interesting listing starting with the Warren Buffet-Goldman Sachs deal (winner) to Citigroup-Wachovia non-deal (loser, of course). Here are some selections from the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy-related listings:Winners: NomuraJapan's Nomura Holdings Inc. paid only $225 million for Lehman Brothers' Asia-Pacific operations a week after the investment bank declared bankruptcy. It

The latest hot Emerging Market for Real Estate investors is...

2009-06-29T04:07:00.000-07:00

The USA! That's according to Tom Shapiro, Founder & President of global real estate investment firm, GoldenTree InSite Partners. Speaking at the Reuters Global Real Estate Summit, Shapiro said that while his firm had not made any investment in the US for two years, he was now seeing some of the best opportunities to make money on RE deals in the US (in the last 20 years) thanks to the attractive

MNC Pharma firms step on the gas

2009-06-25T00:58:00.000-07:00

Following the buyout of India's largest pharma firm Ranbaxy by Japan's Daiichi and RFCL's animal healthcare business by Pfizer, Businessworld has a cover story on how and why the big MNC pharma firms are now taking the Indian market more seriously.In recent months, two other large western pharma companies — UK’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and France’s Sanofi-Aventis — have made news with their

Cutting banks to size

2009-06-24T02:33:00.000-07:00

In an article for the Economic Times, Arun Duggal, the former Indian CEO of Bank of America and a board member of several Indian financial services companies, has a set of drastic recommendations for disciplining global banks to ensure that they don't trigger another financial crisis of this magnitude. One, the size of the banks should be restricted, so that some of them do not become so big as

Business Today's "Cool Companies" List for 2009

2009-06-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

Extract from the profile of Kolkata-based branded menswear firm Turtle Limited:Turtle has just reported a turnover of Rs 62 crore, its highest ever, in 2008-09, up from Rs 46 crore the previous year. “We did better in the second-half…this year, we plan to grow by another 30 per cent,” he says, explaining why: “People will stop buying Louis Philippe and buy Turtle”. Turtle shirts end at Rs 900,

Same (leftist) baggage in a new package?

2009-06-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

In a recent Business Standard column, former Chief Economic Adviser Shankar Acharya has expressed unease - from the perspective of the economy - at the way the new UPA government has started off. Given the kind of expectation for reform the stock markets have built up from the new government, it might be well worth watching out for the signals that Acharya points to in the Union Budget.Economic

Big Government Is Back!

2009-06-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

The new UPA government's first policy statement - the presidential address (PA) to Parliament - gives Business Standard columnist and former Chief Economic Adviser Shankar Acharya a feeling that this government is set to unleash a host of programmes (read big budget "yojanas" like the NREGS).The last five years of UPA rule witnessed an ambivalent mixture of trends. On the one hand, the government

Deal Alert: Anjan Drugs to raise Rs. 25-Cr from Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund

2009-06-10T01:53:00.000-07:00

Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund (EILSF) has committed to invest upto Rs. 25 Crore in Anjan Drugs Pvt. Ltd., a Chennai-based pharmaceuticals company specializing in medicines to treat Central Nervous System disorders. Anjan is one of the largest US-FDA approved producers of Divalproex Sodium and various other salts of Valproic Acid.Other companies that the $150 million EILSF has invested into

Deal Alert: Shalivahana raises Rs. 90-Cr from Axis PE, IL&FS

2009-06-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

Hyderabad-based green energy firm Shalivahana Green Energy Ltd. has raised Rs. 90 crore ($18 million) from Axis Private Equity and IL&FS Financial Services. Shalivahana is a renewable energy firm focused on biomass and small hydro power projects. While Axis PE has invested Rs. 54 crore ($11 million), IL&FS has invested Rs. 36 crore.The deal marks Axis PE’s fifth investment, taking its total

Will Lavasa deliver HCC to the big league?

2009-06-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

Businessworld has an article on engineering & construction firm HCC's ambitious hill station project.HCC entered real estate development in 2001 when it kicked off land acquisition for the Lavasa project. Today, it has power projects in Kargil and Ladakh, and is also executing irrigation and water supply schemes from Godavari river in Andhra Pradesh to the Vaitarna lake, near Mumbai. But it is

More on the inevitable US-China slowdown

2009-06-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

Harvard University Prof and former IMF chief economist weighs in via his Businessworld column.US consumption, the single-biggest driver of global growth, is surely headed to a lower level, on the back of weak housing prices, rising unemployment and falling pension wealth. During the boom, US consumption rose to more than 70 per cent of GDP. In the wake of the crisis, it could fall down towards 60

Why a relapse in 2010 is a given

2009-06-09T04:42:00.000-07:00

In his column for the Economic Times, Morgan Stanley's Ruchir Sharma explains why the structural issues relating to the "over-indebted US consumer and the export-dependent Chinese manufacturer" will come back to haunt the global economy in 2010, by which time the impact of the government spending plans will wear off.The path then for equities in the short-to medium-term is likely to be quite

Kerala's growing "NRK returnee" headache

2009-06-08T01:46:00.000-07:00

Knowledge@Wharton has an article on the phenomenon of Non-resident Keralites (NRKs) - basically, workers from Kerla who emigrate to work in the Middle East - returning back home due to the impact of the economic crisis.Some 200,000 to 500,000 Keralites working in the Gulf are likely to return home by midyear, state finance minister T.M. Thomas Isaac told the State Assembly recently. This is a

Islands of Growth

2009-06-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

Ok; we all know that India and China are still growing; while the economies of almost other countries are shrinking. But did you know that there are two more countries - Indonesia and Egypt - which are growing as well? Economy.com has an interesting chart showing visually what's happening to the GDP of different parts of the world.Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the

2009-06-05T23:12:00.000-07:00

A client of ours is looking for interested buyers for approximately 40,000 ordinary equity of “BOMBAY STOCK EXCHANGE LIMITED”.Interested buyers may please contact Abhishake Agarwal on mobile number +919873459960 or email us at info@omkam.in

Desi handsets anyone?

2009-06-02T05:15:00.000-07:00

As part of its recent cover story on telecom, Business Today has an article on companies which hope to tap into the Indian market for mobile handsets - but not necessarily compete with the Nokias and Samsungs....consider Intex Technologies, an Indian company which also sells laptops, monitors and other computing devices. Says Ramesh A. Vaswani, Vice Chairman, Intex: “We have no ambition to become

New wave of CEO-turned-Entrepreneurs

2009-06-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

Business Today has an article profiling top corporate executives who have turned entrepreneur in recent months. The list include former iflex Solutions CEO Deepak Ghaisas, who is now a biotech entrepreneur. Another venture profiled is a consulting firm founded by three former telecom CEOs which plans to handhold MNCs "through the Byzantine maze of regulation and intrigue". Enter Ravi Sharma and