It’s interesting to see high profile investment bankers joining highly entrepreneurial companies like Pantaloon Retail. The latest is Sameer Sain, a Goldman Sachs Managing Director, who will be heading Pantaloon’s new financial services arm, Future Capital Holdings. Besides being managing director, Sain was head of the special investments group, co-head of wealth management for Europe, [...]

[Via Business Standard] Promod Haque’s Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) is looking at diversifying into sectors beyond technology in India. It will fund startups in sectors like pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, healthcare, auto and auto components, says the report.
“We are already in talks with a number of start-ups in the area of pharma and biotechnology in India. NVP [...]

This is a round table discussion on Indian stock market, organised by Capitalideasonline.com. The discussants are India’s leading stock stalwarts. They talk about the forthcoming Union Budget, where the market is headed and the sectors one can look at.
Ramesh Damani (former Bombay Stock Exchange president)
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (Investor)
Raamdeo Agarwal (Motilal Oswal)
Sanjoy Bhattacharya
Bharat Shah
R Sukumar
Madhu Kela
Prashant Jain
Click [...]

The story headline doesn’t say it. It is tucked away in the bottom-most paragraph. Connectiva Systems Ltd (CSL), a revenue assurance solutions company which has offices in India, and the US, plans to raise its second round of venture funding (some $5 million) from its exiting as well as new venture investors. Talks are on [...]

New Vernon Bharat is investing $10 million for a minority stake in Updater Services (UDS), India’s largest facility management company. The Chennai-based company is growing at about 40-50 per cent a year and is expected to end this fiscal with a topline of Rs 65 crore ($14.5 million). It manages in excess of 35 million [...]

Keya Sarkar, a columnist with Business Standard, has made a very interesting point in her article. When Indian banks are now looking at lending (refinancing) to micro finance institutions (MFIs) in India, there are no borrowers at all. Apparently, there are just 15 “good” MFIs in the country.
Until recently mainstream banks were uninterested in micro [...]

[Via The Economc Times] India’s leading budget airline Air Deccan has filed its Red Herring prospectus with Indian market regulator Securities Exchange Board of India for the much-awaited initial public offering. The airline proposes to offload 25 million shares which translates to 25 per cent of its stock. The roughly $250-million issue is likely to [...]

So what is Vishnu Varshney of Gujarat Venture Finance Ltd (GVFL) going to do with his two funds - the Rs 100 crore-SME fund (this blog wrote about it in a recent post), and the Rs 50 crore biotech fund where Zydus Cadila has invested some money? Today’s Business Standard throws some light.
For the SME [...]

Investment banking space is getting crowded with more and more players looking to entering that area. India Infoline Ltd, a domestic stock broking firm, is planning a foray into investment banking with a focus on cross border transactions, mainly in the SME space. The company will set up offices in three major cities in the [...]

[Via FinanceAsia.com] An interview with Kunal Kashyap, principal founder and managing director, Allegro Capital Advisors, which is an Indian full service investment bank founded in 2002 with 200 professionals across 15 cities. He talks about the economic and investment outlook for India and the current stock market boom, what is hot and what is not, [...]

Baring Private Equity is on an exit spree. After its reported talks with EDS to sell stake in MphasiS, it has exited another company. SoftBank Asia Infrastructure Fund (SAIF) has acquired Baring’s stake in Cybernet Software Solutions (CSS) and the group company SlashSupport for a little over $21 million, says a report in The Economic [...]

This will be India’s biggest private equity deal ever if it happens. According to a report in Business Standard, India’s largest private sector company Reliance Industries is learnt to be talking to a clutch of private equity players and hedge funds to offload about 15-20 percent stake in its wholly owned subsidiary Reliance Petroleum. Analysts [...]

According to a survey by Coller Capital, which polled 109 investors or limited partners, around three-quarters of them see India, China and Central and Eastern Europe as very attractive for private equity investment. Another significant finding is that the “investor appetite for private equity funds has grown in the last six months, while enthusiasm for [...]

Business Standard has an interview with Promod Haque of Norwest Venture Partners. He talks about Norwest’s investment in Yatra Online, the first B2C investment of the VC fund in India, the right qualities of an entrepreneur, India’s competitive advantage in outsourcing and so on. Read on.
This is the first time you appear to be looking [...]

I had written about Thomas Weisel Partners setting up an India office for private equity and investment banking operations. So who will be heading it? It’s ‘Srini’ Sreenivasulu V who will be in charge of the firm’s asset management practice in India, and potentially in Asia.
As Director and CIO of TWP operations in India, Srini [...]