Carlyle, Advent In Talks For BT's Tech Mahindra Stake - Private equity giants Carlyle Group and Advent International are in the reckoning to buy British Telecom's 23.2% stake in India's fifth largest IT services firm Tech Mahindra. Carlyle is likely to join hands with Advent to acquire the BT stake, valued at a little over $500 million. The private equity firms may split the BT stake with the largest shareholder Mahindra preferring multiple investors to one acquirer. A joint stake buy would also mitigate the risk of writing a large cheque on single investment in the prevailing climate of economic uncertainties. (Times of India)
PE-backed Ocean Sparkle, Tag Offshore Eye Merger - Tag Offshore, the Mumbai-based marine support service provider, is understood to have initiated strategic discussions, including a merger option with Hyderabad-based Ocean Sparkle, which is also engaged in providing services such as offshore, drilling, marine construction and port and terminal support. Talks are in an advanced stage of exploring a merger, including the option of an acquisition. Ocean Sparkle is backed by private equity funds India Equity Partners and Eredene Capital Plc. (Business Standard)
DB Hospitality To Raise Rs 1,000Cr Through Stake Sales - Dynamix Balwas Group’s DB Hospitality, in which DB Realty recently picked up 49% stake, is planning to raise over Rs 1,000 crore by selling stake either in the hotel company or any of its three operational and eight under-construction properties. DB Hospitality plans to complete the fund raising exercise by March-end, and the funds raised by selling stake in the hospitality venture are expected to provide liquidity support to the realty business as well. (Economic Times)
Reliance Infra In Talks To Buy Road Projects - Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group firm Reliance Infrastructure is in talks to acquire national highway road projects in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka worth Rs 2,000 crore. Hyderabad-based IVRCL Assets and Holdings and other companies may sell road projects awarded to them by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), these people said. Reliance Infrastructure has mandated Kotak Mahindra Capital and IDFC Capital for the deal. (Economic Times)
Century Cement Biz To Merge With Ultratech - Kumar Mangalam Birla seems to have finally agreed to go ahead with the long-awaited merger of the cement business of Century Textiles, owned by his grandfather B K Birla, with UltraTech. The deal was likely to be inked in a few months. B K Birla group has its cement business under Century, Kesoram and Mangalam Cement with a collective cement capacity of around 17 million tonnes. (Business Standard)
StanChart's Sunil Mehra Joins MAPE Advisory - Sunil Mehra, a renowned investment banker, is set to start his new stint at MAPE Advisory Group as managing director, I-banking. Mehra was earlier with Standard Chartered Bank as managing director, corporate finance group. He had quit the bank last year. Mehra, who has almost 20 years’ experience in the investment banking sector, was involved with key transactions including Tata Chemicals’ acquisition of General Chemicals, Cimpor’s acquisition of Digvijay Cement, Mylan Labs’ acquisition of Matrix Labs, etc. (Business Standard)
Government Plans Holding Company For PSU Banks - The government is planning to change the way it controls state-run banks, so they can raise lots of additional capital without the government losing control over them. The finance ministry believes one common holding company to unite 21 staterun banks could eliminate ad hoc, last-minute infusion of resources that has been the practice so far. A holding company structure allows for innovation in capital infusion, the reason why nearly 85% of US banks have such a structure. (Economic Times)
