Grapevine: Korean SWF opening India office; Everstone may sell QSR stake

By Shubhobrota Dev Roy

  • 17 Mar 2023

Private equity firm Everstone Capital is in talks with General Atlantic to sell its stake in the India master franchise of American fast-food restaurant chain Burger King, The Economic Times reported, citing people with direct knowledge of the deal.  

Everstone Capital, through its investment vehicle QSR Asia Pte Ltd, holds a 40.9% stake in Restaurant Brands, which holds the licence to operate Burger King restaurants in India.  

Everstone-backed companies also run sandwich and salad chain Subway and Lavazza in India under licence from their American and Italian parents.   

Piramal

Piramal Capital & Housing Finance will sell its Rs 5,546-crore bad loan portfolio inherited from Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) to JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Company after a Swiss challenge auction failed to attract any counter offer, The Economic Times reported, citing two people aware of the development. 

JM Financial ARC has offered to purchase the portfolio for Rs 2,550 crore, equating to a 46% recovery rate.  

Piramal Capital had initiated a Swiss Challenge against the ARC’s anchor bid, inviting other interested bidders to submit expressions of interest by March 15, with the offer amount required to be a minimum of 10% higher than the base offer of Rs 2,550 crore.  

Nasdaq-listed software-as-a-service firm Freshworks Inc has undertaken another round of layoffs across teams in its offices in India and the US.

"Freshworks has not conducted org-wide layoffs, and continues to hire for open positions. We continue to review organizational efficiencies to avoid duplicated effort and maintain a strong performance culture…," Freshworks said in an emailed response to Moneycontrol's queries.  

This comes three months after Freshworks announced a round of layoffs, where it laid off 90 employees globally across various verticals.  

KIC-Mumbai office 

Sovereign wealth fund Korea Investment Corporation (KIC) has kicked off procedures to open a Mumbai-based office later this year, The Korea Economic Daily reported.

The South Korean fund has recently set up a task force team under its investment strategy division in a bid to establish an office in the financial hub of India.  

It will mark KIC’s fifth office overseas, following offices in New York, London, Singapore and San Francisco.