Deals Feed
The latest deals involving Indian companies and law firms.
Private equity / VC
Amarchand Mangaldas advised the world’s largest dairy player Groupe Lactalis in buying Hyderabad-based Tirumala Milk Products for Rs 1,750 crore ($275m), including buying out private equity major Carlyle Group’s stake. Carlyle was advised by JSA.
Corporate M&A
J Sagar Associates (JSA) won the mandate to represent long-standing client Facebook on its first Indian acquisition, in its buy of Bangalore-based mobile software analytics company Little Eye Labs for around $15m, which was advised by a local CA firm.
Private equity / VC
Economic Laws Practice (ELP) advised Canaan Partners and Mayfield Fund and S&R Associates advised Bertelsmann India in investing $12m (Rs 75 crore) in residential listings website India Property Online (IPO) which was advised by Fox Mandal.
ELP Mumbai associate partner Vinayak Burman with associate manager Archana Khosla and associate Trishna Sharma acted for existing IPO investors Canaan and Mayfield in the $12m series B Funding as reported by the Business Standard.
S&R partner Rajat Sethi and associates Rachael Israel, Lakshmi Pradeep and Sowjhanya Shankaran acted for Bertelmann which is the strategic investment arm of the German media company Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA in India, as reported by Mint.
Fox partner Jeevandham Rajagopalan and associate Anju Menon acted for IPO which is a Consim Info spun-off founded by the maker or Matrimony.com, according to the Hindu.
Deals in brief
As year-end approaches and law firms send out a flood of press releases for the annual deals league tables, Legally India has wrapped up the most interesting ones in one tidy package.
Corporate M&A
Vichar Partners advised the world’s third-largest pizza chain Papa John’s in selling a majority stake in its Indian franchisee OM Pizza & Eats to Avan Projects, which was advised by Advani & Co.
Private equity / VC
AZB & Partners advised private equity (PE) firm Warburg Pincus as Wadia Ghandy advised PE firm Faering Capital in investing Rs 300 crore ($49m) in ladies ethnic wear maker Biba Apparels which was advised by OP Khaitan & Co.
Corporate M&A
Vaish Associates advised Japanese drug company Rohto Pharmaceutical in buying 40 per cent stake in Deep Care Health which was advised by Mundkur Law Partners.
Vaish Gurgaon partner Hitender Mehta with principal associate Akshay Saxena and senior associate Pratyush Khurana acted for Rohto, which bought the stake for Rs 15.33 crore after a September 2013 Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval, according to the Press Information Bureau.
Mundkur managing partner Ramanand Mundkur partner acted for Deep which forms a joint venture with Rohto to manufacture and deal in prescription and over-the-counter ophthalmological drugs.
Corporate M&A
Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai corporate partners Ashwath Rau and Aysswarya Murthi acted for the Macquarie Group in the sale of its 50 per cent holding in Religare Macquarie Wealth Management to joint venture partner Religare Enterprises, which was advised by Vaish Associates corporate and banking partner Sandhya Iyer.
The JV exit was signed on 29 August and closed on 26 November 2013 [VCCircle]. Religare is a long-loyal client of Vaish, while Macquarie has used a number of Indian firms in the past, though Amarchand had set up the Religare JV for the Australian banking giant between 2007 and 2008.
Corporate M&A
Luthra & Luthra advised Indian private equity and real estate firm Everstone Capital in its joint venture with international fast food giant Burger King.
Private equity / VC
J Sagar Associates (JSA) advised Info Edge on Rs 57 crore, Themis Associates Sequoia on Rs 170.6 crore investments in Zomato.
Private equity / VC
Desai & Diwanji advised Indore-based steroids manufacturer Symbiotec Pharmalab and shareholders in the Rs 292 crore ($48m) PE investment by Actis Medal Sports, advised by Platinum Partners.
Corporate M&A
Chennai law firm Vichar Partners advised Chennai-based auto parts manufacturer Susira Industries in its sale to the Japanese Usui Kokusai Sangyo Kaisha, which was advised by Bangalore law firm Crestlaw Partners.
Vichar partner Chitra Narayan with associate Raj Jabakh acted for Susira, according to an email from Vichar, which will now operate as Usui Susira – a 100 per cent subsidiary of Usui Japan.
Crestlaw partners Ravitej Rao and Sundar Raman acted for Usui.
Litigation
The proposed takeover by Gurgaon-based Apollo Tyres of Ohio-based Cooper Tire & Rubber remained on tenterhooks, as the US company’s bid in a Delaware court to force the deal to close continued unresolved.
Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi and Sullivan Cromwell represented Apollo on the M&A deal, as reported by Legally India in June, with Jones Day having represented Cooper.
Cooper claimed that Apollo was trying to back out of the deal after union and industrial action in the US and China, reported Bloomberg, and that the Indian company agreed that it would use its reasonable best efforts to complete the deal or pay $112.5m in “reverse breakup fees”.
Apollo’s US lawyers wanted Cooper’s case to force a closing thrown out, and claimed in a letter to the court on October 18 that closing conditions to the deal had not been satisfied.
The deal, if completed, would be the largest takeover of an automobile-parts company since 2007.
Corporate M&A
HSB Partners advised US firm Bayada in buying a 26 per cent stake in Chennai’s India Home Health Care (IHHC), which was advised by Chennai law firm VNS Legal.
HSB Partners partner TK Bhaskar, principal associate Varun Sriram and associates Aishwarya Krishnamurthy and Sahana Chandrika acted for Bayada which expects to earn $1bn (Rs 6,300 crore) in revenue next year, reported the Economic Times.
VNS Legal founder VN Shiva Shankar and senior associate Rakesh Cherukuri acted for IHHC which operates in Chennai and Bangalore.
Corporate M&A
PXV Law Partners and French best friend law firm DS Avocats advised French defence electronics group NSE Industries in a joint venture with Bangalore-based Hical Technologies, which was advised by J Sagar Associates (JSA).
PXV Delhi partner GT Thomas Phillippe and DS Advocats Paris partner Olivier Monange acted for NSE Industries, which received the Foreign Investment Promotion Board’s (FIPB) approval for this Rs 1 million ($17,000) foreign direct investment in May of this year.
JSA Bangalore partner Murali Anandasivan and senior associate Mary Julie John acted for Hical.
Capital Markets
PDS & Associates has acted for steel maker Mukand Limited in its Rs 160 crore rights issue, which was filed with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) last week. Board approval was granted in June.
PDS Mumbai partner Sajid Mohamed advised Mukand, assisted by principal Abhishek Misra who had joined the firm two months ago from SA Partners – a start-up he set up in 2010. PDS & Associates is the corporate advisory arm of PDS Legal, which specialises in tax advisory. Both firms work closely with Ernst & Young (E&Y).
Corporate M&A
Obhan & Associates acted for publisher Penguin Random House in its purchase of Ananda Publishers’ stake in Penguin Books India.
Private equity / VC
Link Legal advised GMR whose road development arm GMR Highways sold 74 per cent stake in its special purpose vehicle GMR Ulundurpet Expressways to IDFC's India Infrastructure Fund for Rs 222 crore ($35m). IDFC was advised by Udwadia Udeshi & Argus Partners.
Private equity / VC
PXV Law Partners Mumbai partner Deepto Roy acted for long-time client Glocal Hospitals in its Rs 25 crore ($4m) investment by SIDBI Venture Capital. Kochhar & Co Gurgaon-based partner Anjuli Sivaramakrishnan acted for SIDBI.
Private equity / VC
Universal Legal advised Andhra Pradesh-based Rainbow Hospitals, in which the UK-government owned CDC and private equity investor Abraaj Group invested Rs 100 crore ($16m). Wadia Ghandy advised the CDC and Abraaj Group.
Universal Legal Chennai-based partner Kavitha Vijay and senior associate Sameena Chatrapathy acted for the 14-year old paediatric and maternity healthcare business in AP, which currently has 450 beds but will expand after this business.
Wadia Ghandy Bangalore partner Ankit Majumdar and senior associate Anubhav Agarwal acted for the investors. This was CDC’s first direct equity investment and it intends to invest $1bn in India in the financial services sector, healthcare, renewable energy, and consumer-related businesses, according to the ET.
Corporate M&A
S&R Associates and Kirkland & Ellis advised the UK-based Kewill group and its backers Francisco Partners, in buying Hyderabad-based software solutions provider Four Soft for Rs 265 crore ($43.4m). Four Soft was advised by BMR Legal.
Corporate M&A
AZB, Luthra, Links & Slaughters sell off Indian RBS assets to Ratnakar bank.
Litigation
The London Court of International Arbitration’s (LCIA) Indian subsidiary resolved real estate giant Hiranandani Group’s family business dispute yesterday after over two-and-a-half years of arbitration.
Corporate M&A
RDA Legal advised pickles and jams manufacturer Desai Brothers in buying out Savannah Hotels from Sinclairs Hotels, which operates the Savannah-Sinclairs Hotel in Bangalore, and from Savannah’s other shareholders.
RDA managing partner Rohit Das and associates Ushasi Das and Robin Quadros advised on the transaction, while partner Avik Biswas led the due diligence with senior associate Naren BS and associate Soumik Das.
Sinclairs Hotels, which Das advised in its November 2011 acquisition of Savannah, was advised in-house.
Corporate M&A
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is examining the terms of the agreement between Ambuja Cements and Holcim.
Projects
Amarchand Mangaldas solidified its lead in the Indian project finance league tables ahead of Luthra & Luthra, as AZB & Partners pushed its way into the top three.
Corporate M&A
Luthra & Luthra advised India’s largest multiplex operator PVR in its Rs 1,000 crore contract with BMR-advised Big Tree.
Private equity / VC
HSA Advocates advised Invest India Micro Pension Services (IIMPS) and its promoters in raising funds from German promotional bank KfW for a 30 per cent stake in IIMPS. KfW was advised by its in house legal team.
AZB & Partners partner Hardeep Sachdeva advised the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, which is one of the shareholder’s in IIMPS, alongside UTI Asset Management and SEWA.
HSA partner Harvinder Singh and senior associate Sumedha Dutta acted for IIMPS, which distributes financial services to lower income groups, including savings schemes for old age.
Corporate M&A
AZB & Partners dropped off data provider Merger Market’s half-yearly (H1) M&A league table despite reporting 21 deals – the highest among India’s top ten law firms.
Private equity / VC
DSK Legal advised Fortune 500 companies’ analytics provider Fractal Analytics in the Rs 150 crore ($25m) cash injection by private equity (PE) firm TA Associates, which was advised by Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) and Goodwin Procter.
DSK Legal Mumbai partner Tushar Ajinkya acted for Fractal.
NDA Bangalore partner Vaibhav Parikh and Goodwin Hong Kong partner Yash Rana acted for TA Associates.
PE firms invested about $2.3bn across 82 deals in this year’s second quarter, increasing by around 17.7% from last year in the same quarter when $1.98bn were invested across 114 transactions, according to the Business Standard.
Litigation
PnA Law Offices advised engineering Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) candidate Arnav Ohri in challenging the government assessment process, introduced by Kapil Sibal, for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes in top Indian institutes including the IITs and the NITs.