The Venture Intelligence Blog

We are delighted to announce a stellar list of speakers for APEX '10, the annual conclave of the Indian Private Equity / Venture Capital industry, scheduled for February 4 at Mumbai. This edition of APEX will have a special focus on Education, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Telecom and Financial Services (especially financial inclusion). Speakers at the Summit include: Varun Sood, Capvent Ashish Dhawan, ChrysCapital* Raja Kumar, UTI Ventures* Vani Kola, NEA-IndoUS Ventures Manik Arora, IDG Ventures India Anand Sudarshan, Manipal Education K. Ganaesh, TutorVista Rajesh Bhatia, Tree House Education Sunil Kanoria, Quippo Telecom Mahesh Choudhary, Microqual Techno Dr. Bala Manian, ReaMetrix Swapan Bhattacharya, TCG Lifesciences Chetan Tamhankar, SIRO Clinpharm S. Nandakumar, Perfint Healthcare Padmaja Reddy, Spandana India V.P Nandakumar, Manappuram General Finance Madhusudan Menon, Micro Housing Finance For Participation details, email info@ventureintelligence.in or c

Forbes India has a colorful profile of Ess Dee Aluminium founder Sudip Dutta with a special focus on how he is turning around India Foils, which Ess Dee had acquired from the Vedanta Group in November 2008. The entrepreneur got that one thing right that had made his first acquisition successful – he knew his prey inside out. Since 1999, as he nurtured his company, Dutta had kept an eye on what was happening at rival India Foils. By 2004, Dutta had set up his first foil rolling mill in Daman and had crossed Rs. 100 crore in revenues. He had created a niche for himself among pharmaceuticals companies like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithline and Novartis. His rise was acknowledged by the competition. Indal, then a unit of Hindalco Industries, stopped supplying him with the basic raw material as the A.V. Birla company itself was in the packaging business. Dutta quickly started sourcing the material from an overseas company. ...With more than 20 other former India Foils senior managers with him, Dutta

Business Today has an article outlining the improving economics of multiplex theatre chains. Apart from new movie releases, most of the multiplex companies have reported sharp improvements in their bottom line during the second quarter by cutting costs. The biggest overheads for operators are rentals, electricity, staff salaries and marketing. Following the slowdown in consumer spending and a weak movie pipeline last year, many cineplexes renegotiated their rentals. ..Typically, the box office fetches 65 per cent of an exhibitor’s revenues, food and beverages (F&B) 20 per cent, and advertisements 15 per cent. Of the ticket sales, after deducting entertainment tax, the distributor takes away 48 per cent in the first week and less later. A multiplex makes its money from high-margin areas like advertising and the F&B business. “Currently, the average per head spending on F&B is at around Rs 30 (Rs 20 in non-metros and Rs 40 in metros). With right marketing initiatives, we exp

PE firm Zephyr Peacock India has invested in Metro Wireless Engineering India (Metrotel), an Ahmedabad-based provider of network performance management and optimization services to leading mobile operators and network equipment providers. Apart from India, Metrotel also operates in S.E. Asia and the Middle East. Kartik Parija of Zephyr Peacock has joined the board of the company.