facebook-page-view
Advertisement

Elephant Capital Exits NIIT With 23% IRR

By Pallavi S

  • 26 Aug 2010

Elephant Capital has exited its two and half year old investment in public listed IT education firm NIIT Ltd with an IRR of over 23%. It sold all its remaining holding after initiating two part exits over the last one year, it said in a disclosure to the AIM market.

The shares were purchased in two tranches in March and November 2008 at an aggregate cost of £ 1.86 million. The aggregate realisation from the investment including dividends is £ 2.68 million translating into an income of £ 0.82 million.

The exit had been planned in advance and in a statement early this year, chairman of the AIM-listed India-focused private equity firm, Pramath Raj Sinha had said that Elephant Capital intends to fully exit this investment (NIIT) as market conditions allow.

Advertisement

The PE firm had picked up around 1.5% stake in NIIT for around Rs 15.5 crore through secondary market purchases between March and November 2008. According to calculations done by VCCircle, its average cost of acquisition was around Rs 59/share. NIIT share is currently trading at Rs 67.55 after hitting a 52 week high of Rs 79.05 in January this year.

For Elephant Capital-- that raised £50 million in early 2007 through a public float at the AIM market in London-- this is the first portfolio from which it has totally exited. It had earlier made a partial exit from EIH Ltd, which runs the Oberoi Group of Hotels.

The PE firm that reported net profit of £2.8 million for the six months ended February 28, 2010 compared to net loss of £6.2 million for the corresponding period last year, as per its interim financial report has made a few fresh investments this year including 28.6% stake in clinical research organisation ClinTec for £ 8 million besides picking a significant minority stake in children’s media firm Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd for £3.2 million.

Advertisement

Elephant Capital also has investments in five companies including EIH Limited (Hospitality), Mahindra Forgings Limited (Automotive) and Nitco Limited (Building Materials) as public listed companies. It also has exposure in two unlisted firms Obopay Inc (Mobile Banking Services), and Global Cricket Ventures Limited (Sports Media).

 

Advertisement

Share article on

Advertisement
Advertisement