private equity
Most investors, whether private equity players or otherwise, prefer to have the protection of a liquidity preference clause in investment agreements to protect their investment in case of the happening of certain events.
AZB & Partners’ private equity (PE) practice again won it the top place in the half-yearly league table of data provider Venture Intelligence, making the firm the half-yearly league leader in this space for the third consecutive year.
NLSIU Bangalore 1998 graduate Bhavna Thakur has joined the Everstone Capital Advisors in Mumbai as the fund’s head of capital markets and exits.
AZB & Partners came out on top of a 2014 first-half-year league table released by corporate analytics company Venture Intelligence, recording 22 deals worth more than $2bn.
AZB & Partners was the busiest private equity legal advisor of 2010 ahead of ALMT Legal and Indus Law tied in second place followed by DSK Legal and Tatva Legal. Amarchand Mangaldas and Trilegal came in fourth and fifth places respectively, according to a volume-based league table by data provider Venture Intelligence.
AZB & Partners, Indus Law, ALMT Legal and Trilegal have topped data provider Venture Intelligence’s private equity league tables for the first nine months of this year.
Two offices of AZB & Partners acted on opposite sides of a Chinese Wall for private equity investor Matrix India and gold loan company Muthoot Finance in a 4 per cent investment totalling Rs 157 crore with Luthra & Luthra advising second investor Baring Private Equity Partners India.
Mumbai private equity (PE) boutique ARA Law is mulling opening a Hyderabad office and expanding in Bangalore, having most recently advised on a Rs 60 crore Hyderabad hospital investment by private equity house Milestone Religare Investment Advisors.
Bharucha & Partners and Khaitan & Co have led on The Blackstone Group's Rs 300 crore ($64m) investment in logistics company Gateway Rail Freight.
Desai & Diwanji, DSK Legal and Wadia Ghandy have triple-teamed on the $100m private equity investment into Hyderabad power company Ind-Barath Power Infra.
Amarchand Mangaldas has hired the former general counsel of private equity firm Sun Apollo as a partner for its Mumbai private equity and M&A practice.
AZB, DSK and Trilegal have done well in Asia Pacific private equity deal rankings despite heavily depressed values and volumes this year.
UK law firms are being wooed by private equity houses looking to take a stake - meanwhile, in India, UK law firms are wooing Indian law firms for closer relationships.
The UK's Legal Services Act 2007 will allow external investment into law firms from 2011 and news wire Bloomberg has reported that private equity investors are already lining up to take advantage.
PE funds Fleming Family & Partners, Phoenix Equity Partners and Lyceum Capital Partners were reported by the news service to be interested or in talks to directly invest into law firms.
Apparently law firms make "attractive investments as they have stable cash flows, long track records of business operations and increasingly are much better run".
Most UK law firms are not convinced yet by the proposition - in the words of Allen & Overy's managing partner Wim Dejonghe to Bloomberg: "We looked into it, but decided it wasn’t right for us. Why would we need the money?"
That is a similar question many Indian law firms may be asking themselves when foreign law firms are knocking on their door although judging by the current mood in the profession it will still be a long time before private equity will be allowed into the legal business.
Private equity boutique firm Lexygen has opened a new office in Singapore, on its third anniversary of founding.
Two lawyers from Lexygen's Bangalore headquarters have temporarily relocated to Singapore and are hoping to recruit a local lawyer to head the office within the next six months.
Lexygen founding partner Vijay Sambamurthi said: "We aim for our Singapore office and the team that will be built, to act as the Asia hub for our firm."