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Monday, November 26, 2007

Reliance Industries to see action on RPL sale


Reliance Industries (RIL) has sold 4.01% of the equity share in its subsidiary company Reliance Petrochemical (RPL) by transactions through the stock exchanges. The aggregate sale consideration is Rs. 4,023 crore and post-sale RIL’s stake has come down to 70.99% from 75%. Reports suggest that the sale of 18.04 crore RPL shares would help maximise shareholder value and it monetised only a small share of Reliance Industries’ holding in RPL.

Leading investors Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Reliance Capital have reportedly picked up 15% stake in Nitco Tiles, a leading tile manufacturing firm, for around Rs 170 crore. The institutional investors are believed to have picked up the stake at Rs 270 per share.

Power Grid Corporation of India, the country’s main transmission utility, has entered into a joint venture with Reliance Energy to execute about 300 km transmission lines from Parbati to Koldam and Koldam to Ludhiana. The company will have a 26% equity holding in the venture while Reliance Energy will have 74% stake.

US-based Xcel Telecom is learnt to be in talks to buy out the telecom tower business of cellular operator Spice.

Chennai-based Indowind Energy is reportedly in advanced stages of negotiations to acquire a wind energy company in Europe for an estimated price of around $100 million (Rs 400 crore). The acquisition, if successful, will help the wind energy and farming company to expand its footprint both in domestic and global markets.

Videocon Industries, the oil-to-consumer durables company, has reportedly joined the race for the acquisition of the London-based Burren Energy, which recently rejected several approaches including one worth $3.5 billion (Rs 14,000 crore) from the Italian major ENI. Videocon has submitted an expression of interest for Burren, which produces oil in Congo and Turkmenistan, the report added.

Reliance Power, which is awaiting regulatory nod for its IPO, that could be the largest in the Indian history, is reportedly willing to convert the par value of its shares to Rs 10 from the current Rs 2. Last week the company wrote a letter to Sebi to this effect, the report suggested.

Reliance Communications (RCOM) reportedly plans to sell another 5% stake in its wireless tower business in the second such transaction in this calendar year.

Leading foreign investors like Goldman Sachs and Blackstone are reportedly in final stages of negotiations to buy 26% stake in India Infoline Distribution Co (IILD), the distribution subsidiary of the brokerage firm India Infoline. The investors are willing to offer $100 million for the strategic stake in IILD.

Balaji Telefilms reportedly plans to offload 10-15 stake in its wholly owned subsidiary Balaji Motion Pictures. Reports suggest that the company is valued at Rs 1,000 crore. Centrum Finance is said to be the financial advisor to the company. The company is reportedly in talks with private equity investors. It is considering roping in only one private equity, instead of a cluster of investors. However, the plan is at a nascent stage.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers of equity worth Rs 541.88 crore on Friday, 23 November 2007, while domestic institutional investors bought Rs 525.86 crore of equity on that day, according to provisional data released by NSE.