New Vernon Capital, the US-based private equity and hedge fund founded by former Merrill Lynch honcho Arshad Zakaria, has picked up a less than 1 per cent stake in Camlin Ltd for around Rs 3.5 crore from Anil Singhvi-Anagha Advisors LLP. This comes after Japan's Kokuyo & Co Ltd announced it is picking majority stake in the stationery maker in .
Kokuyo S&T Co Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of $3.2 billion Kokuyo & Co Ltd, acquired a 30 per cent in Camlin through fresh issue and stake sale by promoters for approximately $47 million. It has also
made the mandatory open offer for another 20 per cent stake which could cost it another $33 million.
The open offer is at Rs 110 per share, the price at which promoters sold their 20 per cent to Kokuyo & Co. The open offer begins at July 26 and ends on August 16.
The current deal between New Vernon and Anagha was struck at Rs 75.25 per share, which is over a 30 per cent discount to the open offer price. The share price of Camlin closed at Rs 74.9 on Thursday, up by 3.17 per cent at BSE.
Singhvi, the former Gujarat Ambuja boss who oversaw Holcim's takeover of ACC, held 8.35 per cent stake in Camlin through Anagha Advisors LLP as of May 20, 2011.
Golden Oak Mauritius Ltd, which belong to Ambit Mauritius Investment Managers, holds 9.91 per cent stake a major chunk of which was bought at Rs 51.84 per unit in March this year.
Avendus Private Equity Investment Advisors also completely exited its holding in Camlin last month with about 3.2X returns onits investment.