The Venture Intelligence Blog

Economic Times ' Sachin Dave has an interesting article - featuring Venture Intelligence data - descrbing how deal makers raced against the clock to seal Private Equity investments before March 31 (post which, new taxation rules come into effect under the amended India-Mauritius tax treaty ). Extracts: Scores of lawyers and dealmakers across the country were busy closing acquisition transactions before April 1, 2017, when new tax rules kick in. Indeed, close to 150 such deals were signed in March. "In terms of private equity, almost $3.6 billion — or two-thirds of the total value of investments during the January-March quarter — came in during March alone," said Arun Natarajan, CEO of Venture Intelligence.   A revision in the tax treaty between India and Mauritius is one such change that has sparked a flurry of deals. As per the revised treaty, Mauritius-based entities buying shares of Indian companies before April 1 will not have to pay capital gains tax when they ...

How can start-ups complain when the Prime Minister makes the government machinery work on a  Saturday evening  to unveil plans for making the country more Start-up friendly? The media coverage had set expectations high. Lowering  of Capital Gains tax - including apparently plans to  do away with it . And the Evil Startup / Angel Tax was as good as abolished . Unfortunately, The Devil, as they say, lies in  The Details  (Page 33 onwards to be specific). Are you the founder of a company that's 5 years and 1 day old? Sorry old chap, your baby is no longer a Startup. Regardless of the age bias, it looks like most of the benefits under the #StartupIndia schemes will accrue only to companies that are a part of government supported / recognized incubators. Here's the extract from the official document: In order for a “Startup” to be considered eligible, the Startup should: • be supported by a recommendation (with regard to innovative nature of business),...

“From an Entrepreneurs' perspective, Singapore is a great place to operate from. If you are starting a (VC fundable) venture now, I would recommend having your headquarters/holding company in Singapore and making your Indian operations operate as a subsidiary of that. Singapore also has highly credibile image and is not looked upon as a tax haven.” - Sesh A.V., Basiz Fund Services at the Venture Intelligence APEX'13 Summit From a recent Business Today article: Exact data on such ventures is not available, but the number of Indian companies with operations in the citystate jumped to 4,000 in 2012 from 1,100 in 2000, according to the Singapore Economic Development Board (SEDB). Industry executives say a Singapore presence is ideal for companies aspiring to go global as the city-state is an international business hub. "The very fact that your company is based in Singapore means it is considered more of a regional or global company as the local market is very sm...

A new Grant Thornton report titled “ Global Private Equity Report 2012 " says "India is the most challenging market globally for this sector". Extracts from the Grant Thornton press release on the report : On the Fundraising Outlook The most dramatic decline in optimism from 2011 is evident in the BRICS: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. This year, 78 percent of respondents in these markets described the fundraising outlook as “negative” or “very negative”. In 2011, the figure was 39 percent. On Cross-Border Buyers ...Globally, China and Japan, Europe and North America are the regions from which most GPs expect non-domestic strategic buyers to originate. Regions as expected sources of non-domestic acquirers China, Japan, Korea 31% Europe 24% North America 22% South East Asia 11% India 10% MENA 1% Africa Less than 1% Latin America L...

The proposed General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) in the Indian budget are a short-sighted move that will impact foreign capital flows - including private equity - into the country, says Rahul Bhasin of Baring Private Equity Partners India, in an interview to The Mint . I think what we seem to have created for ourselves in an environment where this global growth is slowing and where we’ve had an opportunity to stand out as the beacon of light in terms of growth and opportunity, I think that we have conspired against ourselves and have lost what could have been our moment in the sun. ...More importantly, from a practical perspective one should look at what the consequences of something like this would be over the next 10 years or so. We are a country running a huge current account deficit, we need to finance it. You need to make sure that you have capital flows in place so that there is no amount of sudden discontinuity in that process because that could prove very expensive. ...I think ...