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Alagappan Murugappan has left private equity fund Deeva Partners which he helped found a year ago to join back at ICICI Securities. Murugapan is joining as head of the equities business at ICICI Securities, the investment banking subsidiary of ICICI Bank, reports FinanceAsia.com. The move back to investment banking is strange since a private equity job is still fancied by an investment banker.

Murugappan had left ICICI Securities in early 2004 to join Actis (erstwhile CDC) as an investment principal. He was responsibile for leading and coordinating fundraising activities relating to South Asia and for deal generation in India. In early 2006, he moved to Deeva, as one of the three founding partners. The fund had secured about $100 million of international seed funding, according to FinanceAsia.com.

Murugappan is filling in the position of Devesh Kumar who had left I-Sec a few months ago to become an entrepreneur.

Pantaloon Retail Chief Operating Officer Ved Prakash Arya has quit, reports The Economic Times. Arya, 37, one of the brightest retail executives in the country, is believed to be floating a real estate fund in which Tata Group, among others, is expected to invest, according to sources close to him. Arya is expected to continue on the board of Pantaloon Retail India (PRIL).

Arya is likely demit office on March 31. At PRIL, Arya was responsible for all M&A activities besides strategic initiatives of the company. A graduate of IIM Ahmedabad, Arya was earlier the CEO of Globus Retail.

Arya was last year selected as a hot executive by Business Today magazine.

US venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates has announced that it will invest $200 million in Indian technology sector. The fund has appointed Ben Mathias as Vice President of the Indian operations - under the entity New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. Mathias will work closely with NEA’s US-based technology team. NEA has $8.5 billion in committed capital across 13 funds.

“We have been selectively investing in India for many years and believe the country offers an attractive environment for venture investing,” said Peter Barris, NEA Managing General Partner. The fund has investments in Sasken Communications, Telsima, Nevis Networks, Protostar, InSilica and GlobalLogic. NEA also has 20 per cent stake in NEA-IndoUS Ventures, an early venture capital fund started by Vinod Dham and Vani Kola. NEA will invest in early-stage IT investments indirectly through NEA-IndoUS Ventures. NEA’s direct investments will be primarily in mid to late-stage opportunities.

“NEA’s focus in India will be on expanding its investment portfolio, while making returns on our initial investments. We look forward to working with India’s best and brightest entrepreneurs in telecom, media, alternative energy, technology-enabled services and infrastructure,” said Krishna “Kittu” Kolluri, General Partner. “Our US-based team which also includes Mark Perry and Ravi Viswanathan, will be consulting with Ben Mathias (head of Indian ops) to identify opportunities..."

Bangalore-based Deccan Aviation has got a new Chief Financial Officer. Aviation banker Ramki Sundaram has replaced Mohan Kumar as the CFO of India's largest low cost carrier. Sundaram comes from Investec Bank, UK.

Kumar, who joined Deccan in 2003, will continue to advise the airline in its charter and MRO businesses.

Providence Equity Partners, a leading global private equity fund, has set up its Asia offices in Hong Kong and New Delhi. Providence specialises in media, entertainment, communications and information companies. The Asian operations of the fund will be led by Andrew Rickards, who will work out of Hong Kong as a managing director. Rickards is currently CEO of N.M. Rothschild & Sons in Asia and former co-head of Communications, Media & Entertainment (CME) Asia Pacific for Goldman Sachs.

The New Delhi office will be headed by Biswajit Subramanian, a Managing Director of Providence Equity in London. He joined the firm in 2000, and has been involved in the fund's investments in telephone networks, cable television systems, programming content and wireless, among other industry segments, a release said. He had led the recent investment of Providence in Idea Cellular. He serves on the board of the AV Birla group owned company.

Prior to Providence, Subramanian was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley & Co. in London, where he was part of the European telecommunications investment banking team. He has also worked at Credit Suisse First Boston, McKinsey & Co. and Intel Corporation.

NEA-IndoUS Ventures, a venture capital firm that is kicking off operations in Bangalore next week, has made another senior level appointment. It has hired Bhaskar Menon as venture partner to lead investments in the BPO/ KPO area along the Indo-US corridor.

Menon will focus his efforts on identifying new investment opportunities and will be responsible to seek and manage strategic investmen ts in early and mid-stage companies in the Information Technology and BPO/ KPO companies in India and the US, a statement said. Menon has two decades of experience in companies like MphasiS’s BPO arm, E-Citi and Merrill Lynch.

NEA-Indo-US Ventures had recently appointed former Intel Capital chief in India Kumar Shiralagi as its General Partner in India. The fund is floated by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Vinod Dham and Vani Kola in partnership with New Enterprise Associates. The fund has raised more than $105 million to invest in India.

Prakash Gurbaxani has quit TSI Ventures Private Ltd, a real estate fund formed by Tishman Speyer and ICICI Venture. It's not known where Gurbaxani is headed, but Tishman has got an interim CEO. Kok Huat Goh, Managing Director, in the emerging group at Tishman Speyer, would stand in as interim CEO.

Goh was earlier with the Ascendas Group of companies. Prior to joining Tishman, Gurbaxani was the CEO of BPO Transworks, which he quit in August 2005. He was also the founder and former CEO of Bangalore-headquartered BPO 24/7 Customer.com.

DSP Merrill Lynch has hired Nipun Sahni, the head of property investments at GE Commercial Finance, to look after the real estate principal investments for the firm in India, says a report in FinanceAsia.com. Sahni will be the director and head of India global commercial real estate of DSP. Besides a stint in GE Commercial Finance in India, Sahni had also worked with Ranbaxy.

Shyam Shenthar, a senior member of the fast-growing investment bank Avendus Advisors, has quit. Shenthar is believed to be floating a boutique investment bank, reports The Hindustan Times. Three other members of Avendus are also joining Shenthar to float the new i-bank. They include Deepesh Garg, AVP (Consumer Products and Services), Shiraz Bhugwadia, AVP (Pharmaceuticals), and Ajit Nayar.

Shenthar was heading the Bangalore office of Avendus. Shenthar has told Hindustan Times that TR Srinivas of Taib Securities is also a part of the yet-to-be named firm. It will have offices in Mumbai and Bangalore.

Avendus, headed by Ranu Vohra, is one of the fastest growing i-banks in India, and it did 32 deals worth over $500 million last year. Avendus is also believed to be talking to private equity funds to fund their overseas expansion. It is also forming an India Growth Fund along with Mayfield Fund.

Shenthar tells HT that they are "looking at the boutique investment space and are aiming to approach the Japanese markets".

In a significant development, Intel Capital's chief in India Kumar Shiralagi has quit. He has joined NEA-IndoUS Ventures as general partner in India. NEA-IndoUS Ventures is a $105 million venture fund formed by Vinod K Dham and Vani Kola in partnership with US venture fund New Enterprise Associates. Shiralagi's is the first senior level appointment by NEA-IndoUS in India. Vani Kola has already shifted her base to Bangalore from Silicon Valley.

Shiralagi will be responsible for equity investments in early and mid-stage companies in the IT and BPO/KPO segment in the Indian and Indo-US corridors.

Shiralagi has over 14 years of senior management experience in working and investing in technology, IT, telecom and BPO industries, and lastly venture capital. He has an MBA from Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management, a PhD and an MS in electrical engineering from Arizona State University.

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NEA Indo-US Ventures To Focus On Early Stage Tech, Mobile