Wednesday, September 27, 2006

India To Attract $7 Billion In Private Equity By 2010

The study finds that there are two main economic forces driving the estimated surge in the size of the Indian private equity market:
-- A growing consumer class is increasing demand in key industries, such as hospitality, retail and healthcare delivery -- Increasingly differentiated Indian skills: -- technology skills that underpinned India's initial rise in the global economy are now evolving toward higher-value design engineering skills -- proficiency once only found in India's services markets are now being replicated in a number of growing Indian manufacturing sectors

Continue reading Bain & Co. study "India Private Equity Outlook"

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

The Rebirth of Venture Capitalism

VENTURE capitalists, who faded from the limelight after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, have been making a comeback with a global focus, says Bob Higgins, founder and managing general partner of Highland Capital Partners, a venture capital firm in Lexington, Mass., and a senior lecturer at the Harvard Business School. Here are excerpts from a conversation:

Continue reading the NewYork Times article here

Friday, September 15, 2006

VC funding for Q2 2005

This is a listing of many of the Bay Area firms that received venture capital financing between Apr. 1 to June 30, 2005.

Most of the data was compiled from a survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Venture Economics and the National Venture Capital Association in conjunction with the Mercury News.


The List


from Silicon Valley

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Two private equity firms bid for Freescale


Two private equity consortiums are bidding to buy chip maker Freescale Semiconductor Inc.for about $16 billion, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Freescale shares were trading up $5.69, or 18.5 percent, at $36.44 on the New York Stock Exchange after the news.

A group consisting of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Silver Lake Partners was the leading bidder for the company, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The other bidding group includes Texas Pacific Group [TPG.UL], Blackstone Group [BG.UL], Permira [PERM.UL] and Carlyle Group [CYL.UL] , sources said.

Freescale, which was spun off from Motorola Inc. in 2004, makes chips used in cellphones, network equipment and automotives. Texas Pacific already has a stake in Freescale, which is based in Austin, Texas.

About 45 percent of Freescale's revenue comes from its automotive, industrial and consumer products unit and about 28 percent from its enterprise and telecom networking chip business. It has 24,000 employees in 30 countries.

The company is now the third-largest chipmaker in the United States with 2005 sales of $5.8 billion.


Source: Forbes & Reuters

ICICI Venture Plans Four Funds


ICICI Venture is planning to set up four new specialised funds, including a small-cap fund, a mezzanine fund, a hedge fund, and a fund of funds. The size of the small-cap fund will be around $500 million. It will begin with a corpus of $200-250 million, which will be hiked to that figure within the next nine months. ICICI Venture has also tied up with seven of its key investors in its private equity funds that will co-invest with them in acquisitions and buying of stakes in companies.
At present, ICICI Venture handles assets of over $2 billion, and is the largest equity fund operating from India. ICICI hopes to double assets under its control to over $4 billion by 2010. The existing assets include the $-810 India Advantage Fund 2, aimed at buyouts and growth capital for small as well as mid-size and large companies and a $-500 million real estate fund that is looking to join hands with developers for commercial as well as residential projects.

Buisness Standard

IDG Ventures Announces India Team

IDG Ventures, which recently announced a $150 million venture fund in India, has appointed Sudhir Sethi as its Managing General Partner for its India office. Sethi will be joined by Manik Arora as a General Partner, T C Meenakshisundaram as Chief Financial Officer and Hemir Doshi, as Investment Advisor. The fund will be based out of Bangalore.

IDG Ventures globally manage $1.4 billion in total assets with offices in the U.S., China, Vietnam, and now India. In a statement Sethi said that IDG Ventures will “primarily invest between $0.5 and 5 million in early-stage technology companies and opportunistically up to $10 million in compelling growth-stage companies.” These companies will be in IT and BPO services, design engineering, electronics and hi-tech manufacturing, consumer internet and digital media, product application software, semiconductors, telecom and value-added mobile services, financial services, and other emerging technology-enabled areas.

Over the next five years they expect to invest in 20-25 companies in India and the Indo-USA corridor.

The fund’s advisors are Jagdish Sheth, management professor and Wipro board member, Arjun Malhotra, co-founder of the HCL Group and currently chairman & CEO of Headstrong, K B Chandrashekhar, founder of Exodus Communication and e4e.

source: ContentSutra

United Western Bank to be merged with IDBI

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today place in public domain a draft scheme of amalgamation of United Western Bank (UWB) with Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI).

According to a release on the website of the central bank, the draft scheme has been sent to both the banks.

"The Reserve Bank has invited suggestions and objections on the draft scheme from the members of public, including the banks' shareholders, depositors and creditors. Both the banks have been given two weeks time up to Wednesday, September 27, 2006, to consider the draft scheme," the release added.

The Reserve Bank will take a view on the future set up of UWB soon thereafter.

It may be recalled that United Western Bank has been placed under an order of moratorium on September 2, 2006. The order is effective up to December 1, 2006 or an earlier date if alternate arrangements are in place.

Reserve Bank received expression of interest from 17 entities for taking over/restructuring UWB. The only restructuring proposal was from UWB, which envisaged help of the Government of Maharashtra and other investors, the release added.


Business Standard

Monday, September 11, 2006

Corporate VC investing up to 2002 levels

In the second quarter of 2006, corporate venture capital investment reached its highest level since the first quarter of 2002, according to a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on Thomson Financial data.

Corporate venture capital is defined as operating corporations investing directly in portfolio companies, either on a solo basis or alongside traditional, independent venture capital funds. These corporate entities are in some cases referred to as strategic investors.

During the three months ended June 30, 2006, corporate venture capital groups participated in 195 deals or 22.2 percent of all venture capital deals completed. These deals represented $602.5 million or 9.2 percent of all dollars venture capitalists invested in the quarter. This activity has been steadily increasing during the last 18 months. Breakout regional data was not available.

For the first six months of 2006, 358 companies received corporate venture capital dollars. The combined total was $1.045 billion or 8.2 percent of all venture capital dollars invested.
The sectors receiving the highest percentage of corporate dollars in the first half of 2006 were telecommunications, biotechnology and software at 15.3 percent, 15.2 percent and 14.6 percent, respectively. The highest percentages of corporate deals were completed in software, biotechnology and medical devices at 23.0 percent, 13.9 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively.


from Sacramento Business Journal
Read

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Branson joins Arnie’s crusade


Sir Richard Branson has joined forces with two of America’s top venture capitalists to slake California’s thirst for environmentally friendly fuels.
Branson has injected more than $60m (£32m) into Cilion, a company that will make bioethanol from corn. He is investing alongside Vinod Khosla, the renowned Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and Ron Burkle, a Los Angeles billionaire who counts Bill Clinton among his advisers.

The project is the start of a move by Branson’s Virgin empire into environmental businesses, a plan known internally as the Gaia Capitalism Project, after the environmental theory developed by the British scientist James Lovelock.
Virgin Fuels, the subsidiary used for the Californian scheme, will alone invest $400m in several biofuel schemes, including some in Britain.


Reported by Times Online.

Read the story here