AZB & Partners

Symbiosis Pune 2009 alumnus Utpal Kant and RMLNLU Lucknow 2011 alumnus Prashant Kanha started up corporate and litigation firm Sequitur in Noida this month, and helped Pune based backpacking hospitality platform Backpacker Panda raise $1.4m.

Khaitan & Co has filed more IPO drafts than any other firm in 2017 just ahead of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, in a market where downward pricing pressures have made it tough across the board.

Hero Enterprises, led by ex-Hero MotoCorp joint MD Sunil Kant Munjal has acquired 25% of the share capital in Mumbai-based consumer lighting firm Corvi LED Light through an investment of Rs 63 crores (around $10m), as reported by The Economic Times and Business Standard.

AZB & Partners and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) acted on the biggest and greatest number of deals respectively, according to mergermarket (MM), which captured far fewer deals than both Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters databases that we had reported last week, in part due to its different deal eligibility criteria (see below).

AZB & Partners was the busiest and fastest growing law firm in India this year according to year-end rankings released separately by Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) Delhi partner Piyush Mishra, who had been hired in 2015 from Luthra & Luthra, has resigned the firm and is understood to in advanced talks to be joining AZB & Partners.

AZB & Partners Mumbai lateral partner and compliance and investigation practice head Ajay Upadhyay has moved to KPMG as a partner in its forensic practice, two years after having joined from E&Y.

“Airtel will sell a 15% stake in the DTH business to Warburg Pincus entity Lion Meadow Investment for Rs 1,623.76 crore, the telecom firm said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday. Another group company that holds 5% of Bharti Telemedia will offer its entire stake to the PE firm. The deal values Bharti Telemedia at close to Rs 11,300 crore. This may make it India’s second largest DTH player by valuation, according to industry experts,” reported The Economic Times.

KKR India Asset Finance, the realty-focused investment unit of global PE Firm KKR & Co. have invested INR 500 crores (USD 82 million) in a township project of the Bangalore-based Bhartiya City Developers Group by extending a term loan facility, as reported by Mint.

In the latest bi-annual rankings compiled by consultancy RSG India, AZB & Partners has topped the table ahead of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM), which had topped the table in 2015 when still united in one firm as Amarchand Mangaldas before their break-up (see full table below).

Vodafone India, Vodafone Mobile Services and Idea Cellular have announced their proposal separately to sell their standalone telecom tower businesses to ATC Telecom Infrastructure, a majority-owned subsidiary of American Tower Corporation for about INR 7,850 crores ($1.2 billion), as reported by Mint. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and receipt of necessary regulatory approvals.