Exclusive: In a significant development, world’s leading travel portal Expedia has acquired a majority stake in India’s leading online hotel aggergator TravelGuru. The deal size is, according to industry sources, $17 million, which values TravelGuru and Desiya.com (which was acquired by the former in December last year) at about $30 million. This seems to be [...]

India’s largest retailer Future Group is looking for a foreign partner. Kishore Biyani, who owns retail brands such as Big Bazaar, Future Bazaar and HomeTown under the Future Group umbrella, is looking to split the country’s largest hypermarket chain into two with one firm focusing on front end and the other handling the back end [...]

Sequoia Capital India is clearly one of the largest funds in India - if not in terms of fund size but in terms of portfolio. They currently manage four funds (one of them being a growth stage private equity fund) with over $1 billion in assets. Half of the funds have been invested in 49 [...]

Farralon sponsored private equity firm Amansha has picked up an 8 per cent stake in Hinduja Foundries for $20 million. Hinduja Foundries, formerly known as Ennore Foundries, is a sister firm of Ashok Leyland, owned by the Hindujas. The private placement is done through equity expansion via its GDR, according to a ET report.
The firm [...]

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising companies are the new hot favourites of private equity funds in the country. The Bangalore-based outdoor advertising firm Serve & Volley (S&V) is in talks with private equity funds to raise Rs 250-300 crore, The Economic Times reported.
The 11-year old company plans to dilute 15-20 per cent to the funds, according to [...]

We all thought Subhiksha Trading Services, India’s first and probably the largest grocery and food retail chain, will go in for a big bang listing. But don’t expect a high octane IPO marketing campaign or roadshows from the ICICI Venture-backed company. The Chennai-headquartered Subhiksha has acquired a 40 per cent stake in an obscure listed [...]

Indian infrastructure sector will have a new buyer of assets as Iceland-based investment bank Kaupthing is all set to list an Indian infrastructure fund on London Stock Exchange on Monday. The fund, called Infrastructure India, has till now raised £40 million ($80 million) in equity. It has also bought one asset - a hydro electric [...]

Citigroup Global Services Ltd, and its technology and infrastructure outsourcing arm Citos are up for sale, the Economic Times reported citing unnamed sources.
Citigroup could be close to finalising the deal with multinational technology vendor IBM Global Services, which is the lead contender for the assets, the report said. The French information technology company Capgemini (CAP.FR) [...]

Germany-based Lufthansa Technik, the $5 billion maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) arm of Lufthansa, has reportedly pulled out of its joint venture with GMR group. Lufthansa and GMR had formed 75:25 JV to set up a MRO near at Shamshabad, Andhra Pradesh, near the site of the upcoming Rajiv Gandhi Hyderabad International Airport. The initial [...]

Deutsche Bank has got a new M&A head in India. The bank’s investment banking subsidiary Deutsche Equities India Pvt Ltd has announced the appointment of Amrit Singh as Head of M&A for India. Singh, whose appointment takes effect immediately, will report to Gordon Paterson, Head of M&A Asia Pacific regionally and to Sanjay Agarwal, Head [...]

Hostile takeover bids have been a rare corporate occurence in India. But the trend seems to be catching up with more and more (gullible) firms being targeted by “corporate raiders”. After Orchid Chemicals, which was targeted by Ranbaxy promoters, eventually resulting in Ranbaxy stopping short of the trigger point for a mandatory open offer, and [...]

Bill Gates is leaving Microsoft Corporation, the company he founded in 1975, to focus on philanthropical activities like new vaccine projects and microfinance funding in developing world. According to Reuters, Gates is set to step down the software giant on Friday, and he will work full-time at his charitable organisation — the Bill & Melinda [...]

India’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd is preparing for a hostile bid for Israel’s Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The Mumbai based Sun said on Thursday that it will make an offer to acquire all of Taros’ shares at $7.75 a share, which is the first instance of an hostile bid by an Indian company abroad. Earlier, [...]

Is Religare Enterprises, the financial services venture of the (erstwhile) Ranbaxy promoter group, close to sewing up another big ticket overseas acquisition? This seems likely. While there have been market reports that Religare is targeting few other financial firms in Europe for acquisition after buying out London’s oldest brokerage house Hichens Harrison for $110 million, [...]

Axis Bank (formerly UTI Bank) has invested Rs 250 crore ($59 million) in Lavasa Corporation, a real estate subsidiary of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC). The bank will get in return about 2.5 per cent stake in the form of convertible preference shares and convertible debentures. The deal pegs the valuation of Lavasa at Rs 10,000 [...]