Month: September 2007

Punj Lloyd has applied for an industrial licence to make guns, rockets and missile artillery systems in a bid to expand its businesses. The Indian defence equipment market is worth Rs 1,00,000 crore.

Reportedly, the licensing committee of the ministry of commerce is expected to take a decision on this soon. Leading companies such as Larsen & Toubro, Tata Group, Mahindra & Mahindra, and others have already secured licenses from the government to produce defense equipment, reports suggest.

Citigroup has a BUY recommendation on Punj Lloyd with a target price of Rs 350.

Private equity funds General Atlantic, Blackstone and Warburg Pincus have shown interest in ICICI Venture’s 63% stake in Infomedia India. Infomedia India is Google’s authorized Adwords resellers in India.

Reportedly, the firm buying the stake will have to make an open offer and also pay a controlling premium. The buyer will have to put in more than Rs 400 crore for the acquisition.

Infomedia’s market capitalisation is Rs 505.98 crore, based on its current price of Rs 256.45 at the BSE.

KS Oils has entered into joint venture in Malaysia with a stake of 49% for the purpose of investments / acquisitions of palm plantations / manufacture of crude palm oil.

This joint venture would enable the company’s long term objective of backward integration and to secure raw materials sourcing for its crude palm oil requirement from South East Asia. The joint venture company is also in the process of acquiring its first plantation in Malaysia for a negotiated consideration up to 11.50 Malaysian ringitt.

Punjab Chemicals and Crop Protection is in the final round of negotiations to acquire a 30% stake in PSD Chemicals, a privately-held firm in the US. Reportedly, the total deal size could be around Rs 100 crore.

The acquisition will give the company an access into the North America’s $7 billion agrochemicals market, which is largest in the world.

ADAG group company, Reliance Energy is planning to spin off EPC division into a separate company.

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) division’s revenue was Rs 2094.56 crore in the the year ended March 2007 (FY 2007), almost a third of REL’s total revenue of Rs 5836.62 crore in the same phase. The EPC division contributed about 27% of the profit before interest & tax (PBIT) of Rs 446.12 crore in FY 2007.

When elder brother Mukesh wants a centralized holding company [RIL] , Anil Ambani is doing the opposite – creating more and more companies to get listed on the exchanges and have a bigger daily Satta 🙂