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26 deals & cases of dozen firms in monster pre-Christmas package

The rest of the week's deals in one package
The rest of the week's deals in one package

Read Legally India’s December and late November deals round-up to find out what friends and colleagues have been up to.

Private equity / VC

AZB & Partners partner Abhijit Joshi and associate Nilanjana Singh advised on the $4.4m acquisition of Matrix Partners of a 22 per cent stake in water company Waterlife India.

Trilegal Delhi corporate partner Charandeep Kaur, alongside associates Mahima Ahluwalia Sinha and Sunandini Das advised venture capital firm Saif Partners on its acquisition of Rs 17.79 crore shares in Hyderabad-based Pennar Industries. [VCCircle]

Amarchand Mangaldas partner Reeba Chacko advised the Series C Investors led by Norwest Venture Partners, with Intel Capital and Nokia Growth Partners along with Sequoia Capital, in their Rs 180 crore investment into Goldsquare Sales India, which runs e-commerce portal fashionandyou.com. [VCCircle]

Amarchand Mangaldas partner Reeba Chacko advised Fidelity in its Rs 20 crore investment into diagnostic services company XCyton Diagnostics by subscription to compulsorily convertible debentures and equity shares. Financial advisor Birthstone Capital Advisors was assisted by JSA. [VCCircle]

Restructuring

Amarchand Mangaldas partners Ashwath Rau, Sharad Mathkar and Vandana Pai Bharucha acted for Bennett Coleman, which demerged the undertaking and business pertaining to real estate of Bennett Coleman & Co as a going concern into a new company by way of court-approved scheme of demerger.

Projects

JSA partner Vivek K Chandy and senior associate Karthik B M advised private equity fund Red Fort on its investment of up to Rs 250 crore in a residential project undertaken by Wadia Ghandy-advised Omkar Realtors in Mumbai’s Malad slum rehabilitation project, which will develop around 1.6m square feet of residential space.

M&A

PXV Law Partners partners Rohit Das and Pingal Khan advised Xander Group-backed hospitality firm Sinclairs Hotels, which bought a majority stake in Savannah Hotels, which owns Bangalore business hotel Savannah Sarovar Premiere. The PXV team also included senior associates Kartik Ravichander and Mrunmayee Malabika, associates Shruti Priya, Santhosh HR, Poornachandra Pattar, Krushi Barfiwala and Rukmini Das. [VCCircle]

Universal Legal partner Kavitha Vijay and senior associate Sameena Chatrapathy acted as sole legal counsel to Agnice Fire Protection and its promoters, who bought a controlling stake in fire safety company United Technologies Corporation in Chennai.

Amarchand Mangaldas partners Ashwath Rau and Vandana Pai Bharucha advised Kotak Mahindra Capital Company – Kotak Mahindra’s investment banking arm – to form a joint venture alliance with US investment banking firm Evercore Group.

Desai & Diwanji partner Monika Deshmukh and associate partner Natasha Treasurywala advised Electrotherm (India)on the acquisition of its ductile iron pipes business for Rs 950 crores by France-based construction industry major Saint Gobain, which was represented by J Sagar Associates (JSA) partner Sandeep Mehta and senior associate Rajesh Pal.

JSA partner Sandeep Mehta and associate Mitesh Shah advised Lintas India on its acquisition of the remaining 50 per cent ownership in Aaren Initiative Outdoor Advertising from Aaren Advertising, which was advised by Vigil Juris partner Vinod Agarwala.

Amarchand Mangaldas partner Nivedita Rao advised UTC Fire & Security Singapore’s stake in Agnice Fire Protection Limited, a Chennai-based company engaged in engineering procurement systems. Veda Corporate Advisors was assisted by Universal Legal’s Chennai office.

JSA partner Sandeep Mehta, senior associate Anish Mashruwala and associate Malav Shah advised the Comparex Group on its acquisition of a majority ownership in Iris Unified Technology resulting in a joint venture with Iris’ Indian shareholders, which were advised by Dua Associates.

AZB & Partners partner Yogesh Bhattarai and associate Vijay Manjrekar advised Bank of India on its purchase of 51 per cent of shares in Bharti AXA Investment Managers and Bharti AXA Trustee Services.

Khaitan & Co partner Abhilekh Verma and associate partner Nishant K Singh and US law firm, The Strong Firm, advised Sara Sae, formerly NOV Sara India , which was bought by US oil and gas company Consolidated Pressure Control for $7m via an asset sale.

JSA partner Vivek K Chandy and associate Nischal Reddy, together with Dallas-based Gardere Wynne Sewell partner Jess Frey, advised the Waste Management Group in its acquisition of the assets and employees of Sky Logistics Private Limited.

Khaitan & Co partner Rabindra Jhunjhunwala advised Red Gate Software on its acquisition of Rajasthan-based Cerebrata Software, which makes development software for the Microsoft Windows Azure platform and was advised by Indus Law.

Khaitan & Co partner Anand Mehta, along with indirect tax executive director Dinesh Kumar Agrawal, assisted Olam International on its purchase of DSK Legal-advised spice processor and exporter Vallabhadas Kanji’s businesses in India, Vietnam and the US for $18m.

Trilegal partner Anand Prasad and counsel Sameer Guha assisted Wolters Kluwer Health, which acquired Mumbai-headquartered scientific journal publisher Medknow.

AZB & Partners partner Gautam Saha advised International Finance Corporation on its $27.36m acquisition of microfinance institution Bandhan Financial Services.

JSA advised Japan’s Sanyo Special Steel Co, who along with Mitsui & Co advised by AZB & Partners, agreed to invest Rs 187 crore ($37m) in the steel business of Mumbai-based Mahindra Ugine Steel Company, advised by Khaitan & Co partner Vaishali Sharma. The JSA team included partners Akshay Chudasama, Manisha Kumar and Ashoo Gupta along with senior associates Manav Raheja and Jamshed Bhumgara and associates Pinaz Mistry and Prerna Arora, while the Tokyo office of Herbert Smith acted as International legal advisors to Sanyo. AZB partner Aditya Vikram Bhat led with the Tokyo office of Clifford Chance as international counsel.

Litigation

MDP & Partners partner Nishit Dhruva has been retained by Union Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Indian Bank in their long-running fight against the BCCI, which has lodged a petition in the Bombay High Court against the banks and Nimbus Communication to force a refund of margin money under guarantees to Nimbus. [TOI]

Hyundai Heavy Industries Company, represented by Khaitan & Co partner Chakrapani Misra, filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court challenging the tender process undertaken by ONGC relating to the tender of approximately $100m to lay approximately 122km of sub-marine pipeline. ONGC was represented by MDP & Partners partners Nishit Dhruva, Prakash Shinde and Swati Deshpande, and senior associate Avinash Gautama.

Debt capital markets

Amarchand & Mangaldas partner Ashish Jejurkar advised JM Financial Products Limited on its debt financing of Rs 100 crore to Bangalore’s Century Group’s holding company Century Real Estate Holdings by way of subscription to unlisted, secured, non-convertible debentures (NCDs) issued by Century, which was advised by Wadia Ghandy.

Rajani Associates partner Sangeeta Lakhi, along with associates Tomu Francis and Pradnesh Warke acted as Indian counsel on the $22m zero coupon unsecured foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) of Hyderabad transport and logistics company Gati, where ICICI Securities was the lead manager.

Equity capital markets

Rajani Associates partner Sangeeta Lakhi, with associates Tomu Francis and Pradnesh Warke assisted NATCO Pharma on its qualified institutional placement (QIP) for approximately Rs 75 crores.

If you would like your deals included in future deals round-ups, please send us an email at with details of the transaction and lead partners.

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