The Venture Intelligence Blog

CAM, Trilegal take no.2 and no.3 slots; KCO also tops by deal volume, followed by AZB and CAM Khaitan & Co. topped the Venture Intelligence League Tables for Legal Advisors to Private Equity & Venture Capital deals in H1 2018 advising deals worth $15.9 billion (across 37 deals) followed by Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas ($13.7 billion across 33 deals) and Trilegal ($13.3 billion across 14 deals). Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas ($8.1 Billion across 31 deals) and AZB & Partners ($5.9 Billion across 36 deals) came in at fourth and fifth respectively. KCO and CAM advised PE-backed company Flipkart, while Trilegal advised Naspers in the $12 Billion exit by investors from Flipkart when it was acquired by Walmart. The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. The tables also i...

AZB & Partners, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas claim the No.2 & No.3 slots Propelled by the $16 Billion Walmart-Flipkart deal, Shardul Amarchand & Mangaldas (SAM) topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisors to M&A Transactions in H1 2018. SAM advised M&A deals worth $48.4 Billion (across 34 qualifying deals) during the period. AZB & Partners (AZB) which advised deals worth $33 Billion across 35 deals and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) ($24.2 Billion across 19 deals) followed next. Khaitan & Co. ($22.8 Billion) occupied the fourth spot, while Trilegal ($21.4 Billion) stood fifth. Four of the top 5 - SAM, CAM, Khaitan and Trilegal - were advisors to the Walmart-Flipkart deal. The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. Khaitan t...

Advisors to the Walmart-Flipkart deal - JP Morgan  ($17 Billion across 3 deals),  Barclays  ($16.4 Billion across 2 deals) and  Goldman Sachs  ($16 Billion across 1 deal) - topped the  Venture Intelligence League Tables  for Transaction Advisor to M&A deals in H1 2018.  Morgan Stanley and DSP Merrill Lynch  ($14.6 Billion across 2 deals) and  Arpwood Capital  ($7.5 billion across 5 deals) came in at fourth and fifth respectively. The Venture Intelligence League Tables, the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. By Deal Volume Ernst & Young  topped the tables by deal volume advising 10 deals worth $964 million. Avendus ,  KPMG ,   and Arpwood Capital  came in at second spot with 5 deals each. Citi came in third with 4 deals. Ot...

Indian pharmaceutical industry accounts for 3.1- 3.6 % (value terms)  and approximately 10% (volume terms) of the global industry and is expected to grow to USD 100 billion by 2025. The pharmaceuticals market in India comprises of medical drugs (generic drugs -70 %; Over-the-counter medicines - 21%; patented drugs - 9%) and medical devices, etc, with prevalence of loan licensee model (drug manufacturing outsourced to licensed manufacturer). This industry has contributed immensely to Indian as well as global healthcare, being material in manufacturing critical, high-quality and low‐cost medicines, with exports of USD 16.84 billion in 2016-17 (expected to reach USD 20 billion by 2020 ).  Introduction of GST in India in July 2017 with a view to overcoming the tax inefficiencies prevalent under the earlier regime has had far reaching implications for the industry. With the onset of GST, pure economic and commercial considerations have taken prominence over tax cost conside...

Economic Times has an interesting article on the opportunities and challenges of E-Commerce in regional languages. Extracts: About 75% of Indian internet users are expected to be regional language speakers by 2021, as per industry estimates. To reach this demographic, companies including Helion Ventures-backed Wooplr and Beenext-backed Elanic are working on launching platforms in vernacular languages including Hindi, Telugu and Tamil so sellers and buyers can engage better.... ...Industry players and experts believe that re-cataloging of products in vernacular languages is a massive challenge and a major cost for established ecommerce companies. Even Paytm Mall’s platform, whose user interface is available in several vernacular languages, has a lot of its product listings in English. The KPMG-Google study reported that around 44% of Indian language users find it difficult to comprehend product description and customer reviews on ecommerce platforms. “High involvement categories ...

The transaction advisory unit of  KPMG  claimed the top position in the  Venture Intelligence League Table for Transaction Advisor to Private Equity deals  in the first half of 2018, advising deals worth $1.7 Billion. KPMG acted as the financial advisor to NHAI in the $1.5 Billion investment by Macquarie to operate 9 highway projects under the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model.  Ernst &  Young  (which advised the $730 million asset sale by Indiabulls Real Estate to Blackstone) and Kotak  (which advised the Vishal Megamart - Partners Group deal) accounted for the second and third spots respectively. The  Venture Intelligence League Tables , the first such initiative exclusively tracking transactions involving India-based companies, are based on value of PE and M&A transactions advised by Transaction and Legal Advisory firms. Arpwood Capital  (which advised the $760 million investment by Temasek in the $2.1 Bil...

Indian tax litigation landscape assures a plethora of court rulings, given the 24 High Courts and various benches of the Tribunal pronouncing verdicts on a regular basis. Broadly speaking, various issues involved in all types of indirect taxes levied (in the pre-GST era) pertained to classification, valuation, taxability, benefits of exemptions and/or Notifications/Circulars, eligibility of CENVAT credit, input tax credit, refund/rebate/drawback, availability of various schemes under the Foreign Trade Policy for the promotion of exports from India, constitutionality of entry tax, etc. These issues inter alia constitute the major litigation defining indirect taxes landscape in India. Pursuant to the roll out of GST wef 01 July 2017, the judiciary has been instrumental in disposing of the cases in relation to the erstwhile legislation expeditiously. New Tribunal Benches have been formed and Tribunal Members have resorted to faster ways of disposal of cases by clubbing matters inv...

Driven by an ambition of creating a local military-industrial complex in India, Defence & Aerospace has been a priority sector for the government over last several years and has been the subject of frequent policy and regulatory updates in response to various industry concerns. Along with large procurement programs, the urgent need to focus on war preparedness – as highlighted by an internal report submitted by Minister of State for Defence last year – is expected to boost the business case for creating an even more enabling framework for private sector participation.  There are several encouraging signs: Swifter decisions by Defence Acquisition Committee for purchasing equipment for the armed forces (many of these purchases are being made from Foreign OEMs and Ordnance Factories to enable quicker deliveries, followed by a ‘Make-in-India’ purchase) Delegation of power to Secretary (DP) for Tier I sub-vendors in certain specified scenarios, and to Army Commanders...

Per the latest economic data, India’s global trade has increased by 16.32% to USD 767.9 billion in 2017-18. As India continues to create a modern, vibrant economic framework for business, developments in international trade law can have far-reaching impact on local companies and their competitiveness on the global stage. This risk gets even more amplified in light of India’s growing integration in the global economy. Notable highlights pertaining to several emerging industrial sectors are enumerated below: Electric Vehicles Government of India (“GoI”) is likely to extend incentives to the tune of USD 1.4 billion for promoting use of electric vehicles under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India (“FAME”) – II Scheme The GoI is planning to offer capital investment subsidy of 20% - 25% (proposal is currently awaiting cabinet approval) While this surely will augment the market for electric vehicles in India, it remains to be seen whether t...

General Data Protection Regulation (“ GDPR ”), approved and adopted by European Parliament in April 2016, is a ‘rights based’ data protection model which allows the users to have greater rights over his/her data.  This came into force on May 25, 2018 GDPR and is today an important topic for most businesses, given the extra-territorial reach of these regulations. This article explores some of the key facets of GDPR and highlights pertinent points. Applicability :Primarily, GDPR lays down rules in relation to protection of natural persons with regard to their personal data. The GDPR is applicable not only to organisations located within the European Union (“EU”), but also applies to organisations located outside of the EU if they ‘process’ personal data of EU subjects as a ‘controller’ or a ‘processor’, and where the processing activity relates to (a) offering of goods or services (including for free) to data subjects in EU; or (b) monitoring theirbehaviour if the behav...

India’s jump from Rank 130 to 100 in World Bank’s ease of doing business rankings can be largely attributed to various legal reforms in the country, including the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“ IBC ”), which has been notified with a vision to resolve the rampant insolvency situation. IBC essentially provides for revival of insolvent corporate entities through a corporate insolvency resolution process (“ CIRP ”) in a time bound manner, failing which such entities undergo liquidation. Over the past one and half years, IBC has proved instrumental in addressing the corporate insolvency situation in the country. However, several crucial issues have emerged under IBC framework. With a view to address some of those issues, the Government of India promulgated the Insolvency and Bankruptcy (Amendment) Ordinance, 2018  (“ 2018 Ordinance ”) on 6 June 2018. Despite this move, certain issues still remain unresolved and require proper analysis. A few critical points are discussed ...