VCCircle Feeds

Flipkart Acquires Letsbuy; Common Investors Get Consolidated Play

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:50:09 +0530

Flipkart.com, the largest online retailer in India, is buying out Letsbuy.com, a specialised e-commerce site run by the two-and-a-half-year-old start-up eTree Marketing Pvt Ltd. The deal marks yet another consolidation move in a bustling e-commerce industry in India that has seen a string of sites folding up recently, even as many others are attracting hyper interest from venture capital and private equity investors.

Kotak Private Equity Backs Minda Corporation

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:22:05 +0530

Kotak Private Equity Group has invested in automotive component firm Minda Corporation Ltd, the flagship of the $555 million Spark Minda or the Ashok Minda Group. The deal has seen the arm of the private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank acquire a minority stake in the company for around Rs 125 crore, VCCircle has learnt.

Foundation Capital Ropes Anamitra Banerji As Entrepreneur In Residence

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:40:30 +0530

Venture capital firm Foundation Capital has appointed Anamitra Banerji, former Twitter product manager, as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Banerji, who comes with an experience in advertising and social media, will bring up his expertise to explore opportunities such as online collaboration, mobile in the consumer space and emerging marketplaces.

He will also assist to launch Widescope, an early-stage experiment at Stanford focused on online collaboration.

Deutsche Bank Exits Lodha Project For $508M

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:31:29 +0530

Deutsche Bank has exited its investment into one of the projects of Mumbai-based property firm Lodha Developers for Rs 2,542 crore ($508 million), pocketing returns of 55 per cent or Rs 902 crore ($180 million) for its over four-year-old investment.

This comes as yet another exit in the Indian realty space, which has been abuzz with private equity funds selling their investments made during the heyday of Indian realty in 2007.

Myntra Secures $20M From Tiger Global, Others

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:12:55 +0530

Bangalore-based e-commerce firm Myntra.com has raised $20 million in a series C funding, led by Tiger Global. The news was first published in Pluggd.in.

The capital will be used to grow its logistics services (the company has already started its own logistics services) and expand into new categories.

Etisalat Takes $827M Charge Against Indian Ops

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:26:40 +0530

Emirates Telecommunication Corp Ltd (Etisalat) wrote off the value of its Indian operations on Thursday, booking an $827 million impairment charge, after India ordered 122 telecoms licences to be cancelled amid a corruption probe.

The move by Etisalat, the Gulf's No. 1 telecom operator by market value, follows a similar step by Norway's Telenor which last week wrote down $721 million in licences and goodwill in India.

Top Picks From Techcircle.in

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:56:38 +0530

MakeMyTrip Q3 Profit Plunges But Revenue Growth Robust, Trims FY12 Revenue Outlook Marginally

S Mobility To Revamp Management

Former Ibibo Execs’ E-com Start-up Ladyblush.com Goes Live

Sahara Launches Construction JV With Turner

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:44:58 +0530

Privately held conglomerate Sahara India and US-based Turner Construction Co have formed a construction joint venture that plans to build projects worth $25 billion over 20 years in India, the companies said on Thursday.

Sahara, with assets of $26 billion, has global interests in finance, infrastructure and real estate, hospitality and media and entertainment. Turner, a subsidiary of German construction group Hochtief, builds about $8 billion worth of projects every year.

Batelco Sells Entire 42.7% In STel For $174.5M To Local Partner

bhawna — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:44:37 +0530

Bahrain Telecommunications Co (Batelco) has struck a deal to sell its entire 42.7 per cent holding in STel Private Limited (STel), an Indian mobile operator, to its local joint venture partner Sky City Foundation Limited for $174.5 million, the company said on Wednesday. This makes it the first foreign investor to announce an exit from India after the country’s apex judiciary in a landmark judgement last week scrapped 122 telecoms licences as part of a corruption probe.

ArthVeda Scripting Seven Real Estate & Infra Funds, Eyes $2B AUM

bhawna — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:58:11 +0530

ArthVeda Fund Management has set the process rolling for four private equity funds in the real estate and infrastructure domain and is eyeing a total of seven funds with assets under management of around $2 billion by 2015, a top company executive told VCCircle.

ArthVeda is the real estate fund management venture of private housing finance company Dewan Housing Finance Ltd.

The Dilemma Of “Control”

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:01:24 +0530

The acquisition of “control” of listed companies has always attracted a premium. This concept forms the rationale for requiring prospective acquirers acquiring such ‘control’ to be bound by onerous open offer obligations to acquire the additional shareholding of the target company.

Predictability A Must For Investments: Ron Somers, USIBC President

bhawna — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:39:29 +0530

Ron Somers, president of the U.S.-India Business Council, has followed the Indian economy closely for decades. Before joining the USIBC, which represents nearly 400 leading US companies doing business in India and global Indian firms, he led the India operations of two companies – Unocal Corporation and Cogentrix Energy. In a wide-ranging interview, he speaks about Indo-US business relations and the investment climate in India, among other issues. Here are the excerpts.

Print Ad Aggregator MyAdCorner Gets Funding From CCube Angels

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:15:04 +0530

Singapore-based angel investor group CCube Angels has invested an undisclosed amount to buy a minority stake in Noida-based start-up MyAdCorner.com.

Run by Adception Infotech Pvt Ltd, MyAdCorner is an online platform for newspaper advertisement booking. It provides a list of advertisement options and an interface to create and book advertisements. The company was co-founded in mid-2010 by IIT Delhi alumnus Rohit Garodia and Prateek Shrivastava.

Temasek Sells 1.4% Of ICICI Bank For $300M

bhawna — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:15:21 +0530

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek sold close to half of its stake in India’s second largest lender by the size of balance sheet (and second largest private bank by market value) for Rs 1,472 crore($300 million) through open market transactions on the stock exchange on Wednesday.

A large chunk of the shares were acquired by an investment arm of Goldman Sachs.

Newly Listed US Cos Call The Shots, Irk Investor Activists

bhawna — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:03:11 +0530

A new crop of companies entering the U.S. public markets, including such high-profile offerings as Facebook, are turning the clock back on the way US corporations are run.

Facebook, Groupon Inc, LinkedIn Corp, Zynga Inc and others have put in place governance provisions that go against a long-term swing towards more shareholder-friendly rules.