PE firms eye stake in Adhunik Metaliks arm

Kolkata-based Adhunik Metaliks is in talks with private equity players for acquiring stake in its wholly owned subsidiary, Orissa Manganese & Minerals.The deal is likely to be struck in the next one month and Adhunik is looking at diluting 10-11% in the company.

Orissa Manganese & Minerals has six manganese mines and one iron ore mine. The iron ore mine has reserves of around 80 million tons having iron content of more than 65%.
Manoj Agarwal, managing director, Adhunik Metaliks said, the iron ore mine would start production from June-July 2008.

Thomas Cook plc is repurchasing Thomas Cook India

UK.-based travel operator, Thomas Cook plc is repurchasing Thomas Cook India ltd (TCIL), which it sold to Dubai Financial two years ago. The Dubai group owns 62% in TCIL and the buyback is being done at Rs 107 per share, said a highly placed sources in the company. The deal is expected to be announced globally later today.

The buyback of the Indian travel major, is a reaffirmation of the growing strength of the Indian market. The TCIL share rose almost 5% to Rs 88.50 on the BSE within five minutes of the market opening.

TCIL has a strong presence in the forex, inbound, outbound and business travel segments. Since the entry of the Dubai group, the company has been growing aggresively through a series of acquisitions, mainly in the travel and foreign exchange space. It bought out LKP Forex to consolidate its lead in the foreign exchange business.

This was followed by the acquisition of Travel Corporation of India (TCI), an established player in the inbound tourism business. In the first nine months last year, TCIL earned consolidated revenue of Rs 225.8 crore (Rs 121.3 crore) and profit after tax of Rs 30.5 crore (Rs 17.3 crore).

Madras Cements buyback at Rs 4,200/share

The board of directors of Madras Cements, which met today, approved a proposal to buy back shares at a maximum price of Rs 4,200 per share.The current market price is around Rs 3,831.

According to a release issued to the BSE today, the maximum amount for which the shares could be purchased (10% of the paid-up capital and free reserves) would be Rs 644.726 crore.The board meeting also declared a second interim dividend of Rs 10 per share of Rs 10 each for 2007-08.

"The company has commissioned, on January 20, 2008, an additional clinkering facility at its Jayanthipuram unit because of which the installed cement manufacturing capacity of the company has increased from six million tonne per annum to eight million tonne per annum," the release added.

Oracle not to delist i-flex for 5 more yrs

Stung by the lukewarm response to its earlier open offer to buy i-flex shares, US-based Oracle has maintained it has no plans to come out with additional open offers for i-flex shareholders for at least the next five years. In a recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, however, it added a rider stating it may think of an open offer if the share price is below Rs 2,100 per share — its offer price of December 7, 2006.

Oracle holds 83 per cent of i-flex’s shares and has been consistently trying to acquire the rest in a bid to delist i-flex from the Indian bourses. It would require a little over 90 per cent of shares to do so. The move will help it to integrate i-flex with its business worldwide.

Under current norms, if the minority shareholders do not surrender shares willingly to the new promoter, the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) takeover code requires the new promoter to come out with a proposal to buy back the rest of the shares from the minority shareholders under a proposal to delist the company.

The buy-back price is decided on the basis of the market price under the reverse book building process. Reverse book-building requires generating offers from sellers.

However, since its open offers received a tepid response, the US-based firm has reportedly been lobbying the Indian government for over a year to amend the Sebi takeover code. The amendment was aimed at compelling the minority shareholders to surrender the shares of i-flex in favour of Oracle, a government source said.

The amendment was suggested on the lines of the “minority squeeze-out norms” of the US under which minority shareholders of an acquired company are compelled to surrender their shares in favour of the new promoter that has acquired a majority stake. Official sources close to the development said the Indian government did not agree to amend the code.

Read more in The Business Standard article.

Bosch buys 9.2 per cent more in Mico

Germany-based Robert Bosch, the world leader in diesel technology, has increased its stake in its Indian subsidiary, Motor Industries Company (Mico), by 9.2 per cent for Rs 1,300 crore.

The company had earlier made an open offer for 20 per cent stake in Mico for Rs 4,000 a share in May. This was followed by a revised offer of Rs 4,600 a share in the following month, possibly triggered by poor market response.The company was able to acquire only 9.2 per cent from the open offer, taking the total promoters stake to 70 per cent from 60.8 per cent.

The company has no plans to get delisted from the stock market, as according to Hieronimus,MD MICO, parent company Bosch has no intentions to raise thier stake beyond 80 per cent. “Our aim is to have an 80 per cent stake in both our companies (the other company being Bosch Chassis Systems) and not to get delisted,” added Hieronimus.

There was also a market buzz that Mico would come out with another open offer, which would carry a share price of Rs 5,000. This would have pegged the total buyback size to ovre $800 million, thus making it one of the largest buyback ever in history.

For the rest 10 per cent (which takes parent company share to 80 per cent), the company is unlikely to come out with a revised open offer in the near future

ICI India may up buyback proposal to Rs575 a share

The board of paints and chemicals maker ICI India Ltd will meet on 26 May to consider a revised share buyback proposal, as the earlier plan did not attract any shareholder interest.

The company said its board will consider buyback of shares at up to Rs575 a share, compared with its ongoing buyback at up to Rs350 a share. According to the earlier proposal, approved in July 2006, ICI India planned to utilize Rs125 crore of its cash surplus for the buyback, and another Rs20 crore for capacity augmentation and to support sales growth. Since then, the company’s cash reserves have swelled through the sale of its advanced refinish business to Asian PPG Industries for Rs52 crore, and that of its flavour and food ingredients business, Quest India, to the
Givaudan group for nearly Rs390 crore.