The Venture Intelligence Blog

The Investment (1999-2001) Between September 1999 and July 2001, Warburg Pincus invests $292 million in Bharti Tele-Ventures in return for a 19% stake, the first tranche being invested in September 1999. Dalip Phatak and Pulak Prasad of Warburg joined Bharti's board. Company Valuation: $1.537-B The IPO (January 2002) Bharti goes public (which, I assume, diluted Warburg's stake to 15%.) The Exit (2004-2005) August 2004: Warburg sells a 3.35% stake for about $208 million. Company Valuation: $6.210-B March 2005: Warburg sells another 6% stake for $560 million, marking the largest ever equity deal in a single scrip on an Indian stock exchange. Company Valuation: $9.333-B October 2005: Warburg sells its final 5.65% stake to UK-based Vodafone for $847.5 million. Company Valuation: $15-B or 10 times that when Warburg invested in the company five years ago. Warburg's total realization: $1.616 Billion - i.e., over 5.5 times its investment amount. Arun Natarajan is the Founder of...

Businessworld has an article on the various players that have introduced the digital distribution of movies to cinema theaters across India. It emphasises more firmly than ever India's position as the digital cinema laboratory of the world. There are now more than half a dozen players trying to roll out digital systems. At over 135 theatres, India is by far one of the largest digital cinema countries in the world along with China and the US. UFO Movies, the brand name under which Valuable hawks its service, has a target of 2,000 theatres by March 2008. If it meets that, it will become the largest film retail chain in India. Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Never mind infrastructure issues. Leading global contract Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) firms are opening plants in India at a rapid pace. The latest addition to the list is Sanmina-SCI, the third largest, reports Businessworld . Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Why are PE and VC firms scurrying to set up real estate focused funds in India? The streaming video of the presentation on "Real Estate Investment Opprtunities in India" by top executives from Kotak Realty Fund - S Sriniwasan, Executive Director and V. Hari Krishna, Chief Investment Officer - at the TiE Silicon Valley office in July 2005 provides the answers. Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.

Knowledge@Wharton has an interesting article explaning why Warburg Pincus is bullish on India. After the usual tale and numbers about the firm's investment and hugely profitable partial exit from Bharti Televentures, the article goes on to talk about how and why Warburg prefers to stick to investing in alredy listed companies - aka PIPE (Private Investment in Public Enterprises) deals. Warburg's other notable holdings in India include Rediff Communication, the country's largest consumer web portal; Gujarat Ambuja Cement; Sintex Industries, an industrial plastic-goods manufacturer with a 60% share of the market for water-storage tanks; Kotak Mahindra, a financial services conglomerate; Nicholas Piramal India, a major pharmaceutical company, and WNS Global Services, a business process outsourcing company. As the list shows, Warburg's bets in India are hardly reckless. The firm generally sticks to the tried, true, big and stock-market listed. That is rarely a winning stra...

Bill Burnham of Celsius Capital has a great post on the lessons he learned from investing in Datapower, a company that was recently acquired by IBM. The entrepreneur "sometimes" knows his market better Just after Datapower had launched its first product, a performance oriented appliance, Eugene lobbied for the company to accelerate the launch a second security oriented product that had been planned for a quarter or two in the future. At the time, I remember cautioning Eugene on the potential distractions and costs of having two immature products in the market at the same time. Eugene lobbied hard to take the risk and thankfully he won the day. I say thankfully because not only did the company land a $300K order that quarter for the security product, but it was able to establish significant mindshare in the security space well ahead of its competitors. To this day the security space continues to have the most robust market demand and competitors that failed to quickly lau...

Business Today has a detailed profile of Baba Kalyani-led Bharat Forge, including nominating the firm as "the Infosys of the auto components sector". I couldn't get past a couple of paragraphs myself, but I link it here since auto components is a favored sector among Private Equity/VC firms these days. Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.