Apollo To Sell BPO Firm Health Street - Apollo Hospitals plans to sell off its business process outsourcing division, Apollo Health Street. The plan is part of the healthcare service provider’s initiative to move out of non-core businesses. Formed in 1999, Apollo Health Street is an associate company of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises, in which the latter holds 40% stake. Apollo Health acquired US-based BPO Zavata in 2005 for $170 million, a deal backed by One Equity Partners and Temasek Holdings. (Financial Chronicle)
Olympus, Raman Roy To Sell Stake In Quattro - Raman Roy and Olympus PE are in talks with UK-based Serco to sell 18-23% stake in Quatrro BPO Solutions. Roy, who is the CMD and holds around 40% stake in the company, plans to sell around 10-15%. While Olympus PE, which holds around 50%, wants to divest 8%. Roy wanted to pump in around $200 million into the company.
Last year, Quatrro had raised $13 million from Walden International, Olympus Capital Holdings Asia and other individual investors. (Financial Express)
Capt Gopinath To Sell Deccan 360 - A final effort is on to salvage whatever little is left of Deccan 360, the air & ground cargo service launched by low-cost aviation pioneer G R Gopinath. Discussions have been initiated to sell the company to a Mumbai-headquartered, highly diversified, multi-billion dollar corporate group which has interests in retail and logistics. Deccan 360, launched during May 2009, had raised Rs 115 crore equity investment from Reliance Industries early last year. (Business Standard)
Shahnaz Husain In Talks For US, Europe JVs - Ayurvedic cosmetics and beauty products maker Shahnaz Husain is looking for potential joint venture partners of strategic investors for her global operations, more than three decades after Husain first took her products abroad. The group has no plans to offload any stake in India, but is looking for foreign participation in its school and beauty parlour business. (Times of India)
RIL, Siemens Explore Security JV - Reliance Industries has joined hands with Siemens — its first tieup since establishing a homeland security and aerospace division early this year — as India’s most valued company plans to aggressively pursue opportunities in homeland security. To start with, it will jointly bid to install CCTV cameras across critical traffic junctions in Mumbai. This could lead to a JV. (Economic Times)
ONGC's FPO In September - ONGC's follow-on offer (FPO) may open on September 20 or 27. The red herring prospectus (RHP) for the FPO could be filed on September 5. The Government is offloading five per cent of its stake in ONGC and plans to raise about Rs 12,000 crore through the issue. With the FPO, the Government's stake in the company will come down to 69.14 per cent from the current 74.14 per cent. (Business Line)
South African Billionaire In Talks With Tata For JVs - South Africa's first black billionaire, mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, is in talks with Ratan Tata for ventures in financial services in India and minerals in his country, where the Tata Group is already one of the biggest foreign investors. Motsepe, executive chairman of African Rainbow Minerals, has been in close contact with Ratan Tata as the two entrepreneurs are jointly leading the India-South Africa CEOs forum that was set up last August with an aim to boost business cooperation. (Economic Times)
Unitech To Sell Hotel Properties - Unitech, the second largest real estate company in India, is planning to sell all three hotels that it is currently developing. Unitech has already tied up with hospitality chain Carlson for the Gurgaon property, and with Marriott for both the Noida and Kolkata hotels. The developer is targeting to raise Rs 500 crore to Rs 700 crore per annum from the sale of non-residential projects, which some refer to as its non-core assets. (Business Standard)