The Venture Intelligence Blog

Private Equity (PE) investments in India rose to their highest ever figure of $37 Billion in 2019 (across 861 transactions),  according to data from Venture Intelligence ( https://www.ventureintelligence.com ), a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and their valuations. (Note: These figures include Venture Capital investments, but exclude PE investments in Real Estate.)  Riding on the back of large ticket Infrastructure sector deals, PE  investments in 2019 edged past the previous high of  $36 Billion (across  937 investments) in 2018 (during which, mega deals in the Tech Sector - especially E-Commerce, had dominated the headlines) . 2019 witnessed 74 PE investments worth $100 million or more (accounting for 74% of the total investment value during the period). Of these, 40 were larger than $200 million each (with 5 investments over $1 Billion), the Venture Intelligence data shows. Top Private Equity Investments ...

A Business Standard article quotes Venture Intelligence data on rising investments in the EV space: Investment flows into such start-ups in 2019 (until the end of November) have grown nearly 170 per cent to $397 million, compared with $147 million in the first 11 months of last year.  The $306-million investment in Ola Electric Mobility by SoftBank Corp, the Arun Sarin family, Ratan Tata and Matrix, in two tranches - $56 million in February and $250 million July 2019 - has been the biggest funding in value terms, show data from Venture Intelligence. Click here to continue reading. Venture Intelligence is India's longest serving provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India.

GLOBAL TAKE-DOWN OF DEFAMATORY CONTENT BY ONLINE PLATFORMS An intense international debate is on relating to merits of global blocking of offensive and defamatory content including any URLs/web links/videos uploaded from global domains by online platforms such as Facebook Inc., Google Inc., YouTube LLC, Google Plus, Twitter etc. (the “ Online Platforms ”). This interesting issue was recently considered in detail by the Hon’ble Delhi High Court in the matter of  Swami Ramdev and Anr. vs. Facebook, Inc. and Ors. [CS(OS) 27/2019] . Facts of the Case :  The petitioner Swami Ramdev approached the Delhi High Court to  inter alia  seek a permanent and mandatory injunction against the Online Platforms for disseminating various defamatory remarks and information including videos, based on a book titled “ Godman to Tycoon – The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev ”. Though an interim order was granted by the Delhi High Court on January 24, 2019, directing removal of the of...

An article by Institutional Investor  covers an EY's 2019 Global Alternative Fund Survey on institutional investors moving allocation from Hedge Funds to Private Equity. Snapshots from the article are below: In 2019, hedge funds made up 33 percent of institutional investors’ allocations to alternatives. That’s a 7 percentage point drop from 2018, according to EY’s 2019 global alternative fund survey released Wednesday. Private equity was the big winner, growing to 25 percent of investors’ alternatives bet from 18 percent the year before, EY reported. Alternatives as a whole made up a quarter of investors’ portfolios, up slightly from 24 percent last year. We’ve seen that hedge fund offerings have been challenged on a number of fronts. Your long-only and long-short equity managers are continuing to face pressure from ETFs and institutional investors that can do that on their own, Ryan Munson, a partner in EY’s asset and wealth management practice and an author of the repo...

Considering Litigation in India | Part II - Know yourself and your opponent before picking a fight! This article is in continuation of the  earlier article  where we outlined the challenges associated with pursuing a litigation in India. As highlighted in our  earlier article , litigating in India can be a time consuming and relatively expensive affair. Anyone planning to engage in commercial litigation in India should utilize litigation only as a means to achieve a desired settlement. In this context, one should be mindful of certain factors that may determine the strategy to achieve the desired settlement. These become more relevant for mid-market businesses, given the constraints on capital and man-power at their disposal. Some important aspects for anyone to consider before engaging in a litigation are as follows: What is your capacity to litigate? Understanding one’s capability and exploring options accordingly may seem to be a simple and logical approach...

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) topped the  Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisors to M&A Transactions  in Jan - Sep 2019 advising deals worth $13.9 Billion (across 35 qualifying deals).  AZB & Partners  ($11.3 Billion across 41 deals) and  Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas  (CAM) ($11.0 Billion across 30 deals) took the second and third spot respectively. L&L Partners  ($9.2 Billion across 21 deals) and Khaitan & Co.  ($8.0 Billion across 65 deals) completed the top five. 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. SAM and AZB advised the GRUH Finance - Bandhan Bank merger and Brookfield's buyout of Pipeline Infrastructure from Reliance Industries . L&L Partners and SAM advised Bhushan Power and Steel takeov...

AZB & Partners topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Legal Advisors to Private Equity Transactions in Jan - Sep 2019 advising deals worth $13 Billion (across 71 qualifying deals). Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) ($8.3 Billion across 49 deals) and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) ($7.1 Billion across 47 deals) took the second and third spot respectively. Khaitan & Co. ($4.1 Billion across 54 deals) and Trilegal ($3.5 Billion across 26 deals) completed the top five. 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. AZB and CAM advised Brookfield's $3.7 Billion acquisition of Reliance Tower Infrastructure Trust . AZB and SAM advised Brookfield's $1.9 Billion buyout of Pipeline Infrastructure from Reliance Industries . AZB and CAM advised Carlyle's $678 ...

Arpwood Capital topped the Venture Intelligence League Table for Financial Advisors to M&A Deals for Jan - Sep 2019, advising M&A deals worth $4.1 Billion (across 5 qualifying deals). Ambit Corporate Finance ($3.4 Billion across 5 deals) and Deloitte ($2.9 Billion across 9 deals) took the second and third spot respectively. Ernst & Young ($2.8 Billion across 10 deals) and KPMG ($2.2 Billion across 8 deals) completed the top five. 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 largest deal advised by  Arpwood Capital  was the merger between   GRUH Finance and Bandhan B ank worth $3 Billion .  Ambit Corporate Finance  advised  Brookfield's $1.9 Billion buyout of Pipeline Infrastructure from Reliance Industries.  Deloitte  ad...

Legal Capsule by LexCounsel Multinational companies such as Google, Facebook, Airbnb etc., engaged in providing digital services in different countries, without any physical presence, are likely to be adversely impacted by the changing international tax regime. The tax challenges arising from digitalisation of the economy were identified as one of the main areas of focus of the Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS) Action Plan, leading to the 2015 BEPS Action 1 Report on ‘Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digital Economy’. Thereafter, the focus of the countries has been to draw up a conclusive plan for the governments’ right to tax multinationals, through the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is currently working on releasing a methodology for such taxation, by 2020. OECD has prepared a proposed “Unified Approach”, designed to address the tax challenges arising from digitalisation of the economy and to grant new taxing rights to the coun...