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Goldman Sachs and Macquarie India Holdings have invested Rs 155.74 crore to pick up a 40 per cent stake in PTC Financial Services (PFS), the financial services arm of PTC India Ltd, formerly known as Power Trading Corporation. PFS is a non-banking finance corporation which has been set up to undertake investments across the Indian energy value chain.
The two financial investors have acquired 20 per cent stake each at Rs 16 per share. The face value of the share is Rs 10. This values PTC Financial Services at Rs 389.35 crore. The paid up capital of the company is Rs 243.2 crore. The state-owned PTC India has brought in Rs 146 crore for its 60 per cent equity holding in the subsidiary at Rs 10 per share. NM Rothschild & Sons (India) was the sole sell side advisor on the transaction.
PFS, which has already acquired a 26 per cent stake in Indian Energy Exchange, the country’s first power exchange, has a mandate to invest in greenfield and brownfield power generation assets, power transmission and distribution assets, apart from energy related infrastructure assets such as gas pipelines, fuel linked ports and electricity equipment. It may also act as a sponsor of energy funds, as well as establishing an asset management company to deploy and manage the fund.
Meanwhile, The Hindustan Times reports that PTC India has just completed a roadshow to raise about Rs 1,200 crore via private placement. The publicly listed company has a market cap of Rs 2,350 crore.

The private equity arm of Kotak Mahindra would invest around $10 million in Hyderabad-based Heritage Foods, reports The Economic Times. Heritage is promoted by Chandrababu Naidu, politician and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. The deal was signed on Monday evening, the report added, quoting sources.
Heritage has informed stock exchanges that it would hold its board meeting on Friday, January 4, to consider the proposal of issuing equity shares/warrants on preferential basis to promoters or non-promoters. The Kotak investment is to be decided in this meeting.
The proceeds of the fund would be deployed to expand its retail format 'Fresh@' stores from the present 50 to 100. The store plans to expand the footprint and look at other markets in mid term. They currently have stores in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad, and sell 50 grocery products like cereals, pulses and staples under brand name Farmers Pride. The company is primarily into milk and milk products and has established a network of procurement and chilling plants across South India.

The promoters of the leading Indian media company NDTV Ltd have bought 7.73 per cent stake from private equity fund General Atlantic for Rs 192 crore. The promoters - husband-wife duo Prannoy and Radhika Roy - have bought the stake (4,836,000 shares) from GA Global Investments, an entity of the PE fund, thus increasing their stake in the company to 61 per cent. Indiabulls Financial Services is believed to have brokered the transaction. The shares have been pledged with Indiabulls, a stock exchange announcement showed.
Following the deal, the promoters have made an open offer to acquire a further 20 per cent stake from the public shareholders at Rs 438.98 a share (which is below the current market price of Rs 462). Acquiring 12,525,446 shares of the company would cost the promoters Rs 550 crore. Morgan Stanley India is managing the open offer.
It's not clear why promoters have chosen to buy back shares. Post-buy back, the foreign holding in the company will come down. Now foreign investors or NRIs can pick up an additional 7.73 per cent in the company, it informed the stock exchanges. The Roys had wanted to gift a 15 per cent of their stake to their daughter Tara Roy, who is an NRI. This proposal was not approved by the RBI since the foreign holding in the company had reached the upper limit. Now the buy-back will allow the Roys the leeway to effect the transaction.
The deal will give General Atlantic almost 2X returns. In September 2005, GA bought 7.95 per cent stake from Shyam Cellular for Rs 116 crore at Rs 240 a share.

Logistics firm Gateway Distriparks is looking at raising private equity for its railway freight subsidiary - Gateway Rail Freight Pvt Ltd. The company is expected to close the deal in the next two months, a top executive of the firm told CNBC TV18 this afternoon. The company will look at diluting about 15-20 per cent to a private equity investor. The executive also told the channel that the rail freight business may clock revenues of Rs 100-120 crore in 2008-09.
This will be the second private equity investment in a rail cargo company. Early this month, Mumbai-based Sage Capital picked up 8 per cent in Innovative B2B Logistics Solutions reportedly for Rs 25 crore.
Gateway Rail Freight is an unlisted company. The group may look at listing this entity over a period of time. Gateway Distriparks is a publicly listed logistic firm. It's a joint venture between NTSC, Parameshwara Holdings Ltd, Windmill International and Thakral Corporation, and provides services such as warehousing, container freight stations, providing handling and clearance of shipping containers. The company received approval from Indian Railways for running bulk trains railway in 2005.
It operates container freight stations (CFS) at Navi Mumbai, Chennai, Vishakapatnam and Inland Container Depot at Garhi Harsaru, Gurgaon. In November last year, the firm acquired 50.1 per cent stake in cold chain logistics firm Snowman Frozen Food Ltd for Rs 48.12 crore.

This just in. A slew of international investors have picked up a minority stake for $1 billion in Bharti Infratel, the tower arm of Bharti Airtel, the company said in a statement today. The international investors are Temasek Holdings, The Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), Goldman Sachs, Macquarie, AIF Capital, Citigroup and India Equity Partners (IEP). Temasek is the largest investor.
The enterprise valuation has been agreed to be in the range of $10-12.5 Billion, and the final valuation, within this range, will be determined on the basis of Bharti Infratel's actual operating performance in FY 2008-09, the release said.
Bharti Infratel owns close to 20,000 sites and holds approximately 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers, the recently announced joint venture between Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, which has over 70,000 sites. Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers will provide passive infrastructure services to all wireless telecom operators in India on a non-discriminatory basis.
Sharing of passive infrastructure results in capex and opex savings and higher capital efficiency for all wireless operators, enabling quicker roll out of services especially in rural areas, the release added.
Recently, Spice Communications decided to sell 875 towers to Quipo, part of the Srei Group, for Rs 500 crore, while Reliance Communications raised $337.5 million by selling 5 per cent stake in its tower arm RTIL.

Private equity fund Blackstone's $275 million investment in the Hyderabad-based media house Eenadu Group is yet to be concluded since the deal has not got approval from the government's Foreign Investment promotion Board (FIPB). Now what is key is the life of the agreement signed between the fund and the company on January 28, 2007, is ending on December 31. The agreement will have to be renewed to stay live.
It's not clear why FIPB has not yet cleared the deal. Foreign investors are allowed up to 26 per cent in newspaper company or news broadcaster. It could be that Ushodaya is in the sensitive media sector, and the government is wary of a foreign investor becoming a significant shareholder in the same. The group owns Andhra's influential Telugu language newspaper, Eenadu, and private television broadcasting network ETV, which runs regional language general entertainment and news channels. Blackstone had signed an agreement in January this year to invest $275 million in Ushodaya Enterprises. The group is also raising $190 million in bank financing. The transaction was subject to regulatory approval by FIPB and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Private equity fund Warburg Pincus has raised its stake in auto components manufacturer Amtek India Ltd to nearly 9.5 percent, reports Reuters. The firm is believed to have bought 2.92 million shares, or 2.8 percent, of the outstanding shares, of the company for Rs 204 in a block deal on Bombay Stock Exchange, the report further says.
Warburg has been buying up shares in Amtek India. The firm had apparently held only 1.24 percent in Amtek India as on September 2007.
Meanwhile, UTI Technology Fund last week sold 700,000 shares or a 1.61 per cent stake in Moschip Semiconductor Technology, reducing its total holding in the company to 3 per cent.

Delhi-based IT hardware and diversified electronics company Intex Technologies plans to raise funds via an IPO or private equity placement, says a report. The company, which started as an importer of ethernet cards from Taiwan in 1996, is now a leading distributor and manufacturer of computer peripherals. The company also recently ventured into the marketing of mobile phones, essentially targeted at rural markets, besides car audio and accessories.
Intex, founded by first generation entrepreneur Narendra Bansal, wants to position itself as an end-use products company (an electronics brand?) from a mere computer peripherals player. It's now looking for a foreign partner in a joint venture to start manufacturing of audio products. The joint venture should happen in the finnacial year 2008-09. Intex has a factory in Jammu and Baddi in Himachal Pradesh. Intex is targetting a turnover of Rs 380 crore this financial year, up from Rs 260 crore this year. The profits are not known.

Boston-based Venus Capital Management has launched its first private equity offering to invest in late stage India-based companies. The firm is also readying a beta product and a real estate offering for the region to be launched next year, says a report. Venus is targeting between $25 million to $50 million. "It will invest in companies that are going to have liquidity events within two years," the firm's founder Vik Mehrotra has been quoted as saying.
Mehrotra mentioned that the firm is prepping a beta product that will look to outperform the Nifty Index for investors with hedge fund exposure in the region. The firm's India-focused $400 million Venus Arbitrage Fund, which invests in equity-related arbitrage opportunities, is up 14.6 per vent YTD through November. Its 19-month old $110 million Venus Special Situations fund has also fared well, returning 30.05 per cent during the same period.
Venus Capital, founded in 1994, manages some $700 million in total assets. First ever private equity investment in an Indian art house was made by Venus Capital. It picked up 5 per cent stake in Osian's Connoiseurs of Art for Rs 11.2 crore ($2.5 million). The firms has been betting big on hedge funds till now.

Mumbai-based financial services firm India Infoline and its insurance subsidiary have raised Rs 750 crore from Singapore-based private equity firm Orient Global. India Infoline Ltd has raised Rs 555 crore (approximately $141 million) from Orient Global, which will acquire 3.7 million shares representing 6.48 per cent of the current equity capital of the company. The company, which is present in retail and institutional equities businesses, is currently valued at Rs 8,564 crore or $2.16 billion.
Orient Global has also invested $50 million (Rs 197 crore) for a 10 per cent stake (post-money, fully diluted) in India Infoline’s insurance subsidiary, India Infoline Marketing Services Ltd (IIMSL). IIMSL does its business through its two subsidiaries, India Infoline Insurance Services Ltd and India Infoline Insurance Brokers Ltd. The capital provided by Orient Global will be used to expand the company’s branch network, establish call centres, invest in new technology and set up training facilities and general corporate purposes, says a release.
In November, Orient Global had invested $76.7 million (Rs 300 crore) for a 22.5 per cent stake in India Infoline Ltd’s consumer finance subsidiary, India Infoline Investment Services Ltd. With the current investment of $191 million, Orient Global's total exposure in India Infoline group companies is $267.7 million.
India Infoline has a network of 596 branches spread across 345 cities over India. It also claims to service 500,000 retail customers. Nirmal Jain is the founder, chairman and managing director of India Infoline Ltd. Orient Global is a Singapore-based private investment institution focused on financial and social businesses. The firm is founded by Richard Chandler.