Corporate M&A

PDS & Associates and DLA Piper advised Indian conglomerate PCM Group in its €36m (Rs 255 crore) acquisition of German international railway equipment conglomerate Rail One whose shareholders were advised by Hogan Lovells.

PDS & Associates Mumbai partner Sajid Mohamed, with DLA Piper Germany partner Benjamin Parameswaran and counsel Isaschar Nicolaysen and a raft of other DLA partners acted for the Siliguri-based Indian private company in acquiring the 118-year old German giant.

Hogan Lovells Berlin-based partner Jörg Meissner acted for Rail One shareholders. The €150m company with plants in Germany, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Spain and South Korea was acquired for €36m reported the Economic Times.

Linklaters partner Dr Eva Reudelhuber acted for the banks for the sellers.

AZB & Partners did the greatest number of deals (13) in the first quarter of this year, according to the mergermarket M&A deal rankings.

Fox Mandal advised US-based GAVIS Pharmaceuticals in its Rs 73.75 crore ($13.6m) brownfield investment in Bangalore-based pharma company Wintac, which was advised by J Sagar Associates (JSA).

J Sagar Associates (JSA) and DLA Piper advised multinational certification services firm Bureau Veritas (BV), which will buy Indian and middle-eastern industrial-testing firm Sievert.

Sievert was advised by AZB & Partners Bangalore partner Srinath Dasari, senior associate Nanditha Gopal, and associate Veena Ganesh.

JSA Mumbai partner Sandeep Mehta with associates Aarti Iyer and Adil Ladha, and DLA Piper Middle East regional managing partner Abdul Aziz Al-Yaqout, legal director Diwakar Agarwal and associate Zara Merali acted for BV which will likely complete the acquisition in May 2013, according to its press release.

Sievert reported revenue of $33m in 2012, according to BV, and is engaged in the testing, inspection and certification using non-destructive technique businesses in India and the Middle East.

Breaking: Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) and DSK Legal advised old-client Strides Arcolab in the $1.6bn+ sale of its injectables subsidiary Agila Specialties to Nasdaq-listed generic drugs-maker Mylan Inc.

AZB & Partners advised India-focused infrastructure fund Macquarie SBI in its Rs 206 crore ($40m) buy of 74 per cent equity in the GMR group’s road project GMR Jadcherla Expressways (GJEL). GMR was advised by Link Legal.

AZB & Partners Mumbai co-founding partner Bahram Vakil, with senior associate Qais Jamal, acted for Macquarie SBI, which expanded its road portfolio. Macquarie SBI had two years ago invested in GMR infrastructure’s airport subsidiary, as reported in Mint at the time.

Link Legal Delhi corporate partner Anand Srivastava and senior associate Milind Jha acted for the GMR group, which is operating the Farukhnagar-Jadcherla highway in Andhra Pradesh under a concession agreement signed with the National Highway Authority of India, according to a GMR press release.

Khaitan & Co advised the British ITE group’s Cyprus-based subsidiary Airgate in its Rs 122 crore (£14m) buy of a 28.3 per cent stake in event management company Asian Business Exhibition and Conferences (ABEC), which was advised by AZB & Partners.

Khaitan & Co Delhi corporate partner Bharat Anand and direct tax executive director Daksha Baxi acted for Airgate, which bought the stake from Qatar’s investment bank Qinvest.

AZB & Partners Mumbai partner Shameek Chaudhuri acted for ABEC which runs 19 exhibitions across 11 vertical markets including construction, architecture, design, education, lifestyle, real estate, and oil & gas.

IndusLaw’s Hyderabad office advised Kaizen Private Equity, which with German publishing giant Bertelsmann invested $4m (Rs 22 crore) in AuthorGen Technologies, that was advised by Dua Associates in Mumbai.

AuthorGen’s majority shareholder Educomp, which will become a minority shareholder after the sale, was represented by Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi partner Kalpataru Tripathy and senior associate Promode Murugavelu.

Dua Mumbai partner Vinod Joseph, senior associate Sugandha Kamal and associate Dhrupad Vaghani assisted AuthorGen and its founder Harman Singh.

IndusLaw Hyderabad partner Satya Sree Akella and associates Basava Rao and Kaustuv Banerjee acted for Kaizen.

AuthorGen is involved in providing online classes to teachers with its flagship product WizIQ, reported Mint.

AZB & Partners advised business process outsourcing firm Genpact in its buy of India-based healthcare payer industry service provider Felix Software Solutions, which was advised by US attorney Cyrus Kashef.

AZB & Partners Delhi partner Vinati Kastia with senior associates Bharat Bahadur and Daksh Trivedi acted for Felix. Felix was bought by Genpact as part of its purchase of the US-based Jawood, which had sub-contracted Felix, according to the Financial Express.

The healthcare payer industry is seeing enormous growth due to regulatory changes, including creation of health insurance exchanges, and the development of alternative risk and payment models, stated a report in the Economic Times.

Sino-Singaporean joint venture law firm Dacheng Wong Alliance’s India practice advised on Singaporean e-waste company Enviro-Hub Holdings' (EHH) Rs 110 crore ($20m) sale of its subsidiary to Indian IT company Cerebra Integrated Technologies.

Former Lexygen Singapore partner Yang Yen Thaw alongside fellow Dacheng India co-head and managing principal Aloysius Wee, and senior associate Richa Chaturvedi acted for the Bangalore-based Cerebra, which bought EHH's wholly-owned Singaporean subsidiary Cimelia Resource Recovery.

Consultancy firm Grant Thornton India advised on the financial aspects of the deal. Yang Yen Thaw said no Indian firms acted on the deal.

With this deal Cerebra would become one of the first global Indian multinational companies in the area of electronics and electrical equipment (WEEE) waste, an industry estimated at around $20 billion currently, according to Business Standard.

AZB & Partners advised British travel major Thomas Cook’s erstwhile Indian subsidiary in buying a 74 per cent stake in upcoming Indian staffing company Ikya Human Capital Solutions for Rs 256 crore ($47.6m). Ikya was advised by Amarchand Mangaldas.

AZB & Partners Mumbai partner Ashwin Ramanathan with senior associates Nandish Vyas and Bhavi Sanghvi acted for Thomas Cook (India) and Canadian investment company Fairbridge Capital which had acquired the Indian subsidiary from the UK’s Thomas Cook PLC in May last year.

This, according to the Economic Times, was Fairbridge’s first acquisition after the Thomas Cook buy.

Amarchand Mangaldas Bangalore partner Reeba Chacko with principal associate Akshay Bhat acted for Ikya.

The deal marks the complete exit of venture capital fund India Equity Partners from Ikya, reported VCCircle. India Equity Partners had bought a 59 per cent stake in the Bangalore-based staffing firm since 2008.

AZB & Partners advised the Dabur India promoters, the Burman Family, which picked up around Rs 50 crore ($9m) stake in DMI Finance, which was advised by start-up Amicus Advocates & Solicitors.

Amarchand Mangaldas topped the 2012 mergers and acquisitions (M&A) India rankings released by data provider mergermarket, in terms of advising on the biggest value M&As in 2012. In terms of the total number of M&A deals advised on, Amarchand was runners up to third-time leader Desai & Diwanji.

Khaitan & Co and Clifford Chance advised Chinese textile machinery manufacturing company Jiangsu Jinsheng in its CHF 500m or Rs 2,940 crore ($537m) buy of the textile components business of Swiss engineering company Oerlikon which was advised by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

DSK Legal, with German law firm Luther LLP, advised Switzerland-based road construction equipment maker Ammann group in its Rs 280 crore ($51m) buy of 70 per cent equity in Gujarat’s Apollo group’s road-equipment business. Apollo was advised by Desai & Diwanji.

DSK Legal Mumbai partners Raksha Kothari and Nirav Shah with associates Karuna Thapa, Gaurav Mistry and Malabika Boruah, and Luther Frankfurt partner Jorg Sommer acted for Ammann which will form a 70:30 construction equipment joint venture (JV) with Apollo Earthmovers, according to DSK Legal.

Desai & Diwanji Mumbai partner Vihang Virkar with associate partner Aneesh Gupte acted for the Apollo Group.

The newly formed road-construction equipment JV – Apollo Construction Equipment (ACEL) - is valued at Rs 400 crore and Apollo group’s asphalt plants and the paver business will be transferred to ACEL on a slump sale basis, according to VC Circle.