M&A Roundup: You Telecom; Percept Knorigin; Advanta India
Citigroup Venture Capital funded You Telecom is entering the cable TV business by acquiring 50 percent stake in Digital Infotainment, a Bangalore based cable operator, reports Indiantelevision.com. The acquisition has been done through a cable TV subsidiary Digital Outsourcing. YOU Telecom owns 49 percent stake in this company, while the rest is held by Indian shareholders.
Citigroup Venture Capital owns 85 percent of YOU Telecom, while Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd acquired 5 percent stake in the co last year. “This is our entry into cable TV operations. We are looking at making more such acquisitions,” You Telecom CEO EVS Chakravarthy has been quoted as saying. Last year, YOU Telecom acquired Ahmedabad based ISP Icenet.
Percept Knorigin, the digital media arm of Percept Holdings, has acquired a Mumbai-based search engine marketing firm Searchize. The terms of the deal are not disclosed. The company, started in 2004 by Ryan Govindan, deals in search related marketing and analytics services including organic search optimization and contextual paid advertising on search platforms like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Seed marketing company Advanta India has acquired vegetable seeds business of Hyderabad-based Unicom Seeds for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition would strengthen the company’s position in the vegetable seed market and increase its product portfolio, Advanta India said in a communication to the Bombay Stock Exchange. Advanta is a 100 per cent subsidiary of United Phosphorus Ltd. It deals with the research, development, production and marketing of hybrid seeds. Unicom has a strong presence in the domestic and export markets of vegetable seeds and is also engaged in custom production for key vegetable seed suppliers in Europe, Asia and USA. The revenue size for the last financial year was Rs 25 crore with an EBITDA of 30 per cent
