Market intermediaries, who are constantly on the lookout for avenues to reduce overhead and compliance costs, have found a new tool.
With the new financial year kicking in and the equity markets showing signs of stability, the government is expected to soon initiate its divestment programme with renewed vigour.
The rise in material prices and excise duty is set to raise the prices of liquor brands across the country. According to officials of various companies, the brands will be costlier by 15-20 per cent from April.
The Chhabria-promoted Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion) Allied Blenders & Distillers will launch two brandy brands in South India next month.
Consolidation seems to the key word among private equity (PE) backed companies. In the first few months of 2011, about 20 merger & acquisition (M&A) deals worth $150 million took place.
Luckily for him, the bumps on the way got forgotten, thanks to his expertise in earning high returns for investors through patient exits.
While there are still some months left before two of the three members retire, the industry is already abuzz with talk that they might get an extension.
Gati Coast to Coast was set up in 1986 as a service provider for all sea-bound cargo in the Bay of Bengal, Andaman Islands and Malacca Straits.
Macquarie-SBI Infrastructure Fund (MSIF), one of the largest in this category in India, run by Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Management Pvt Ltd (MSIT), is in an advanced stage of talks with a shipping port company to make an investment of about Rs 1,000 crore ($200-220 million).
Gitanjali Gems plans to hive off various businesses.
After introducing the call auction mechanism in Sensex and Nifty stocks, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is mulling extending this to the proposed platform for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), although with a few changes.
The automobile services segment, from radio taxi services to used cars, is seeing increased interest from venture capital (VC) investors.
"Kraft's acquisition of Cadbury is a global acquisition, where some value is attributable to India. This is different from Vodafone, where the transfer of a single share of the offshore company by Hutch resulted in the Indian business getting transferred to Vodafone," said Pranay Bhatia, associate partner at legal firm Economic Laws Practice.
"A lot of PE investors are interested in renewable energy and we are exploring PE investments for our wind energy initiatives," said Thomas John Muthoot, chairman and managing director.
Private equity company Actis is in talks with Isuzu Motors for exiting automobile company Swaraj Mazda. According to sources, though Actis has been looking to exit for quite sometime, the deal is stuck over difference in valuation.
The mega real estate loan scam could delay the initial public offers of over half a dozen real estate developers because of poor investor sentiment, said bankers and analysts tracking the sector.
In the changed scenario of Indian private equity, where institutions and individuals are busy with fund raising, the fund houses are exploring untapped markets.
The new Takeover Code that proposes sweeping changes in the way mergers and acquisitions are done in India is unlikely to get the final regulatory approval in the next couple of months. It is expected that the new set of regulations will be implemented only around the end of the current financial year.
Mutual funds breathed easy today, with the flow into liquid and liquid-plus schemes soaring to Rs 30,000-35,000 crore. This is in contrast to the situation over the past few days when a liquidity squeeze caused by the Coal India issue soaking up cash forced companies and banks to withdraw money from mutual funds.
Global pension funds have started investing aggressively in primary market offers. Till recently, they were not looking beyond some of the largest Indian listed companies.
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