Here are the Funding, PE and M&A deals happened in India for the week starting May 7^th 2012.

Funding, Private Equity and M&A Deals of the week [May 7^th to May 13^th 2012] 

Funded Company / Acquired Company	Deal Type	Who Funded / Who Acquired	Funding Amount	Remarks
ProKlean technologies Pvt. Ltd.	Angel Funding	Chennai Angels	USD 500k	manufacturing expansion & reach expansion
Magzter Inc.	Series A	IndoUS Venture Partners	Undisclosed	To expand its footprint in other countries
cbazaar.com	Series A	Inventus Capital Partners & Ojas Venture Partners	USD 3.5 Million	For general Business Expansion
stylishyou.in	Acquisition	Yebhi.com	Undisclosed	Strategic deal for expansion in Jewellery
PriceGrabber.com, LowerMyBills.com and ClassesUSA.com	Acquisition	Ybrant Digital Ltd	USD 175 Million	To expand their product platform
Parampara Foods	Acquisition	General Mills USA	USD 12 Million	To increase their product portfolio
Firepro Systems Pvt. Ltd	Majority Stake*	Panasonic	Undisclosed	* 76% stake
Giftcart.com	Angel Funding	TekCorp	USD 1 Million	To strengthen  development, marketing & Supply Chain
Radiant Hospitality Services Pvt Ltd	Acquisition	OCS Systems	USD 5.5 Million	N/A
BASIX Krishi Samruddhi Ltd	Private Equity	Acumen Fund	USD 2 Million	For creating Pan-India branches
Limberlink Technologies Pvt. Ltd.	Series A	Accel Partners	USD 2 million	N/A
ICRA Techno Analytics Limited	Acquisition	ICRA Techno Analytics Limited	Undisclosed	N/A
People Matters Media Private Limited	Series A	HR Fund	USD 750k	For general Business Expansion
Talentube.com	Angel Funding	consortium of investors	USD 12 Million	To built largest talent community in India
MVR Infrastructure & Tollways Pvt Ltd	Acquisition	IRB Infrastructure Developers	USD 26 Million*	* approx
Moolchand Healthcare	Private Equity	Sequoia Capital	USD 20 Million	To fund its business expansion plans

[We are sometimes unable to get the funding amounts, as they are not disclosed. However, we update this sheet when it becomes public. If you are aware of amounts, and they have not been put up in the table, please do get in touch with us.]

You can check out coverage of all the previous Weekly Funding & M&A deals round-up here.

Note: Even though we try our best to bring you all the funding / M&A deals of the week, there are always ones which go un-reported. Most of the deals which we put up here are published on multiple websites, and we do refer them to provide the accuracy of deal in question. If you know of the any that we have not covered, please let us know and we will be more than happy to add it to the list!

Related posts:

1. Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [Feb 13th to Feb 26th 2012]
2. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the week [7th Nov - 13th Nov 2011]
3. Indian Funding Deals of the week [Apr 30th to May 6th 2012]
4. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the Week [5th Feb - 12th Feb 2012]

Here are the Funding and M&A deals happened in India for the week starting April 30^th 2012.

Funding, M&A Deals of the week [Apr 30^th to April May 6^th 2012] 

Funded Company / Acquired Company	Deal Type	Who Funded / Who Acquired	Funding Amount	Remarks
Innoz technologies Pvt. Ltd.	Series A	Seedfund	Between USD 2 to 5 Mln USD*	To grow their SMS platform
Renewgen Kotte	Private Equity*	International Finance Corporation (IFC)	USD 9 Mln	*The deal is not yet fully materialized
Promax Applications Group	Acquistion	Wipro Ltd.	USD 36 Mln	Strategic Business Acquisition
Pantaloon Apparel Arm	Majority Stake	Aditya Birla Nuvo	USD 150 mln (approx)	To separate apparel retail business
Lemon Tree Hotels	Private Equity	APG dutch pension fund	USD 125 Mln	For 6% stake
ReGen Powertech	Private Equity	TVS Capital, M Cap Fund Advisors	USD 10 Million	For general business expansion
MAS Financial Services	Private Equity	International Finance Corporation (IFC)	USD 12 Million	Funding through convertible preference shares (CCPS).
Marg Karaikal Port Pvt Ltd	Private Equity	Jacob Ballas Capital	USD 38 Mln	To increase their port capacity
Flareum Solar Technologies Pvt Ltd	Private Equity	International Finance Corporation (IFC)	USD 1 Million	To meet working capital requirements
Kumar Urban Development ltd	Private Equity	(LICHF AMC)	USD 39 Mln	for its residential township project in Pune
idubba.com	angel funding	Rajan Anandan, Srikant Sastri, Abhishek Rungta & Pallav Nadhani	Amount undisclosed	For general business expansion
Slideshare.net	acquisition	Linkedin.com	USD 119 Mln	Strategic acquisition by Linkedin
orangescape.com	Angel Funding	Indian Angel Network	USD 1 Million	For general business expansion
Dalkia India Pvt Ltd	Acquisition	EFS Facilities	Amount Undisclosed	For regional expansion in India

[We are sometimes unable to get the funding amounts, as they are not disclosed. However, we update this sheet when it becomes public. If you are aware of amounts, and they have not been put up in the table, please do get in touch with us.]

You can check out coverage of all the previous Weekly Funding & M&A deals round-up here.

Note: Even though we try our best to bring you all the funding / M&A deals of the week, there are always ones which go un-reported. Most of the deals which we put up here are published on multiple websites, and we do refer them to provide the accuracy of deal in question. If you know of the any that we have not covered, please let us know and we will be more than happy to add it to the list!

Related posts:

1. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [March 26th to April 1st 2012]
2. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [April 23rd to April 29th 2012]
3. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the Week [5th Feb - 12th Feb 2012]
4. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [April 2nd to April 8th 2012]

Here are the Funding and M&A deals happened in India for the week starting April 23^rd 2012.

Funding, M&A Deals of the week [Apr 23^rd to April 29^th 2012] 

Funded Company / Acquired Company	Deal Type	Who Funded / Who Acquired	Funding Amount	Remarks
Chernin Media Group	Private Equity	Providence Equity Partners	USD 200 Million	N/A (funding amount is tentative)
VRL Logistics Ltd.	Private Equity	New Silk Route	USD 35 Million	N/A
Appaswamy Real Estate Ltd.	Private Equity	Xander Inc.	USD 40 Million	For its upcoming project “Futura” in Chennai
Barbeque Nation	Private Equity	Tano Capital	USD 20 million	Deal yet to be finalized (Src: VCCircle.com)
Zero Waste Agro Organics Pvt Ltd	Majority Stake	Rallis India Ltd.	USD 5.5 million	For 51% stake in company
Indigo Consulting	Acquisition	Publicis Groupe	Undisclosed amount	Strategic Acquistion for expansion
Adiga’s	Private Equity	New Silk Route	Undisclosed amount	For general expansion of Business
Supertech	Private Equity	Walton Street Capital	USD 20 Million	For its upcoming real estate project in Noida
INOX Renewables Limited*	Private Equity	International Finance Corp (IFC)	USD 130 Million	*The deal is yet to be confirmed.
Talentsprint.com	Series A	Nexus Venture Partners	USD 4 Million	For Platform development & marketing expansion
Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd	Private equity	ChrysCapital	USD 57 Million	For general Business expansion
Star Drugs and Research Labs Ltd (SDRL)	Acquisition	Strides Arcolab Ltd	USD 24 Million	For general Business expansion
United Mobile Apps Pvt Ltd	Series A	Mumbai Angels, Blume Ventures, India Venture Partners & others	USD 1 Million	To scale up the team and invest in Technology & marketing.
Freshdesk.com	Series B	Tiger Global Management,  Accel Partners,	USD 5 Million	ramp up engineering team and build product features
Forus Health Pvt. Ltd	Series A	Accel Partners, IDG Ventures	USD 5 Million	For general business expansion
Tek Travels	Majority Stake	MIH Group	Undisclosed amount	To strengthen their travel biz portal
Neepaz V Forge	Acquistion	Nagpur Automotive Industries Pvt Ltd	USD 44 million	Strategic Acquisition
Captronic Systems Pvt Ltd	Private Equity	Forum Synergies	USD 3 Million	For business expansion

[We are sometimes unable to get the funding amounts, as they are not disclosed. However, we update this sheet when it becomes public. If you are aware of amounts, and they have not been put up in the table, please do get in touch with us.]

You can check out coverage of all the previous Weekly Funding & M&A deals round-up here.

Note: Even though we try our best to bring you all the funding / M&A deals of the week, there are always ones which go un-reported. Most of the deals which we put up here are published on multiple websites, and we do refer them to provide the accuracy of deal in question. If you know of the any that we have not covered, please let us know and we will be more than happy to add it to the list!

Related posts:

1. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [April 2nd to April 8th 2012]
2. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [March 26th to April 1st 2012]
3. Indian Funding Deals of the Fortnight [April 9th to April 22nd 2012]
4. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the Fortnight [23rd Jan - 4th Feb 2012]

Here are the Funding and M&A deals happened in India for the fortnight starting April 9^th 2012.

Funding, M&A Deals of the fortnight [Apr 9^th to April 22^nd 2012] 

Funded Company / Acquired Company	Deal Type	Who Funded / Who Acquired	Funding Amount	Remarks
eDabba.com	Series A	Satyendra Shukla, Amit Patel & others	USD 1 Million	For general expansion & marketing activities
Olacabs.com	Series A	Tiger Global	USD 8 million*	To scale up operations nationally * as reported by ET
YourCabs.com	Seed Funding	Sprism Investment Pvt. Ltd.	Undisclosed	For Technology & Marketing activities
Trimax IT Services	Private Equity	Aditya Birla Capital Advisors	USD 20 Million	For general expansion activities
Taxiguide	Seed Funding	R P Anand	USD 50k	For general expansion
Vienova Education Pvt. Ltd	Series A	Bamboo Finance	USD 3 Million	For general expansion of Business
Villgro Innovation	Seed Funding	Unitus Seed Fund	Undisclosed	For general expansion
Insieve	Seed Funding	Ojas Venture Partners, Blume Ventures	Undisclosed	For product development & marketing
Jash Engineering	Private Equity	Pragati India Fund	USD 5 Million	For general business expansion
Blufin.com	Seed funding	Zodius Advisors	Undisclosed	For India operations
fastfacts.co.in	Acquisition	Thomson Reuters	Undisclosed	Strategic acquisition
Unmetric.com	Series A	Nexus Venture Partners	USD 3.2 Million	to develop & expand its analytics platform
Connexios	Private Equity	Nadathur Holdings	USD 20 million	For general business expansion
Agilyst Inc	Acquisition	eClerx Services Ltd	Undisclosed	Strategic acquisition
Nagarjuna Oil Corporation Ltd	Private Equity	Trafigura	USD 130 million*	*For 24% stake
Birds Eye Systems Pvt Ltd	Seed funding	Indian Angel Network	USD 400k	For expanding business footprint
Greenlight Planet	Private Equity	Bamboo FInance	USD 4 Million	to increase distribution & enhance R&D
mouse-e.com	Seed Funding	Undisclosed	USD 200k	For general business expansion
Vibble.tv	Series A	Silver Stone Capital & 4 others	USD 500k	To add more relevant content
Accounting Plaza	Acquisition	Genpact	Undisclosed	To increased Genpact’s domain expertise
Myshaadi.com	Seed Funding	Indian Angel Network	Undisclosed	To strengthen its operations
Examsguru.in	Seed Funding	Simarjit Singh Khera	USD 30k	For platform development & marketing
PropTiger.com	Series B	SAIF Partners	USD 5 Million	For general business expansion
APAG Holdings AG	Acquisition	Kanoria Chemicals & Industries	USD 7 Million*	* For 90% equity buyout

[We are sometimes unable to get the funding amounts, as they are not disclosed. However, we update this sheet when it becomes public. If you are aware of amounts, and they have not been put up in the table, please do get in touch with us.]

You can check out coverage of all the previous Weekly Funding & M&A deals round-up here.

Note: Even though we try our best to bring you all the funding / M&A deals of the week, there are always ones which go un-reported. Most of the deals which we put up here are published on multiple websites, and we do refer them to provide the accuracy of deal in question. If you know of the any that we have not covered, please let us know and we will be more than happy to add it to the list!

Related posts:

1. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [April 2nd to April 8th 2012]
2. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [March 26th to April 1st 2012]
3. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the Week [16th Jan - 22nd Jan 2012]
4. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the Fortnight [23rd Jan - 4th Feb 2012]

A few days back, we carried a post on Facebook and Instagram’s surprisingly overpriced marriage. There’s one more announcement that been unleashed as a part of Facebook’s sudden app acquisition spree. Facebook has acquired Tagtile, a San Francisco based loyalty and customer acquisition startup founded by IITians. For the uninitiated, Tagtile allows merchants to give their shoppers rewards through coupons or loyalty points for checking in with smartphones during store visits.

The entire company including its assets is being acquired for a sum that remains undisclosed. Whether this will be close to its billion dollar acquired predecessor Instagram or not, is something that only time and Mark Zuckerberg will tell. One of the main aims of this acquisition for Facebook is to capitalize on the fact that businesses can send coupons to their customers which they may print or redeem using their mobile phones directly.

What is Tagtile and how does it work?

An app that helps local businesses to connect with their customers to increase revenue? Is Facebook shelling out monies to acquire something that sounds so simple? Founded by two Indian IIT grads Abheek Anand and Soham Mazumdar, Tagtile offers simple solutions to connect with customers without any overheads whatsoever. Here’s how.

According to Tagtile, businesses simply need to plug in their customized Tagtile Cube which is a small box, into a power outlet. The Cube has a sensor that allows users with the downloaded app to earn tags by simply tapping their phones against the Tagtile Cube. The app is currently available on iPhone and Android platforms. Through social media integration, users can receive and share loyalty points and offers from the merchant, directly through their phone.

In effect, Tagtile makes it possible to get information regarding a user’s location at a particular business without having them to do a manual check-in. It is interesting to see Tagtile using sensors instead of near field communications (NFC).

Benefits for businesses:

• Tagtile’s merchant dashboard gives updated minute by minute information about stores.
• The Tagtile app allows the business to track customers and the frequency of their visits.
• Marketing material is in-built with the starter kit. Custom offers, push notifications and niche targeted information are sent directly to customers’ smartphones.
• No overheads are added, whether it is sales people, internet connections or staff.
• Tagtile links a customer’s purchase history with their identity, helping businesses to know them thoroughly.
• Social media integration helps businesses to gain more customers through word of mouth. Existing customers can post their experiences on social media and increase brand reputation.

Why Tagtile?

Google recently gave us all a glimpse of their foray into augmented virtual reality (VR) glasses which track users and feed real time information to the user via a VR display. As one would imagine, the revenue potential from a target advertisement perspective in a device like that is unheard of. If the day comes when people are seen wearing such VR devices on the streets, local business would certainly want to track customers and throw deals / coupons towards those who are walking their way.

After all, real time tracking will allow target and location specific advertisements like the world has never seen. Tagtile is all about local businesses building better relationships with their customers and Facebook may very well be seeing a potential on this forefront.

Whether or not that is the case, it is clear that Facebook is revving up its talent pool to cover niches where it still hasn’t seen the growth that it would like to. Mobile and local commerce are areas where Facebook can do much better and the acquisition of Instagram and Tagtile are Facebook’s first steps in catching up. But with NFC phones, FourSquare’s check-ins and the likes, we’ll have to wait and watch to see how effective Facebook is in convincing local businesses to use their Tagtile service. In comparison to its competitors, Facebook overwhelming user base remains its greatest competitive edge.

Will customers be tapping their phones for coupons against Tagtile Cubes in every store they enter? Should small app developers rejoice and expectantly wait to be acquired by Facebook in the near future? Or is Facebook simply trying to imitate and intimidate Google by expanding its footprint across different and versatile service platforms on the internet? Cross your fingers, we say!

Related posts:

1. Facebook’s Instagram Acquisition: Don’t think valuation, think synergies!
2. Indian Infotech companies on shopping spree – No credit, all cash!
3. Customer Acquisition through Social Media!
4. Is Facebook Trying To Build The Next Yahoo Answers?

Here are the Funding and M&A deals happened in India for the week starting April 2^nd 2012.

Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [Apr 2^nd to April 8^th 2012] 

Funded Company / Acquired Company	Deal Type	Who Funded / Who Acquired	Funding Amount	Remarks
CARE Hospitals	Private Equity	Advent International	Rs. 525 Crore	To consolidate its position in Healthcare space
Nai Dunia	Acquisition	Jagran Prakashan	Undisclosed	Strategic Acquisition
My Mobile Payments Ltd.	Private Equity	Caplain Inc.	Rs. 150 Crore	For general expansion
Savaari.com	Series A	Inventus Capital Partners	Rs 5 Crore	to scale up marketing team
Billdesk.com	Minority Stake	TA Associates	Undisclosed	N/A
esportsbuy.com	Acquisition	Snapdeal.com	Undisclosed	Strategic Investment
Hotelogix.com	Series A	Accel Partners, Blume Ventures & Mumbai Angels	Rs. 6 Crore	To increase Foothold in the market
DGM India	Acquisition	Tyroo Media Pvt. Ltd.	Rs. 3.35 Crore	For IP rights & management transfer
Vennar Ceramics	Majority Stake	Kajaria Ceramics	Rs. 13.65 crore	Strategic Acquisition
Super Agri Seeds Pvt. Ltd.	Private Equity	India Agri Business Fund	Rs. 50 Crore	For general Business Expansion
Tulsi Castings and Machining	Private Equity	India Venture Advisors	Rs. 40 Crore	N/A
Bookadda.com	Seed Funding	TV Mohandas Pai and his partner Ranjan Pai	Undisclosed	For further expansion of their ecommerce platform
Neutral Glass & Allied Industries	Acquisition	Gerresheimer AG	Undisclosed	70% stake strategic acquisition

[We are sometimes unable to get the funding amounts, as they are not disclosed. However, we update this sheet when it becomes public. If you are aware of amounts, and they have not been put up in the table, please do get in touch with us.]

You can check out coverage of all the previous Weekly Funding & M&A deals round-up here.

Note: Even though we try our best to bring you all the funding / M&A deals of the week, there are always ones which go un-reported. Most of the deals which we put up here are published on multiple websites, and we do refer them to provide the accuracy of deal in question. If you know of the any that we have not covered, please let us know and we will be more than happy to add it to the list!

Related posts:

1. Indian Funding Deals of the Week [March 26th to April 1st 2012]
2. Indian Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [March 19th to March 25th 2012]
3. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the Week [2nd Jan - 8th Jan 2012]
4. Indian Funding, M&A deals of the Week [5th Feb - 12th Feb 2012]

This is what has been happening on my messaging client since last 12 – 14 hours since Instagram acquisition news came out.

——

Friend: Did you hear about Instagram’s 1 Billion Dollar Acquisition by Facebook?

Me: Yes, that’s ridiculous..ain’t it.. I mean its f***ing 1 BILLION DOLLARS or 5000 crore rupees. For a little over year old company with 13 people and absolutely no revenues…

and then next 10 minutes go in discussing how just absurd this news is…

——

Incidentally, I installed Instagram on my Android phone 3-4 days back, and here was my instant reaction that I put out on Facebook…

So what has Facebook bought for 1 Billion Dollars? – A popular but average product , a dozen employees, no revenue to show ?

Yes, that’s what they have bought, along with user base of a few million users (which are already on Facebook).

Prima Facie, this deal looks ridiculous and highly over-priced if look at it from valuation perspective alone.

However, if you look at Facebook & Instagram together, it looks like a beautiful marriage. The one which has power to make 1 and 1 into 11.

Facebook last year reported 3.7 billion turnover with 1 Billion dollars profit. Do you know that not even 1 percent of that revenue was from mobile.

And Instagram is all mobile.

Facebook Photos is probably the most important feature of Facebook. More photos are uploaded on Facebook than any other site in the world. With Instagram’s popularity growing and use of mobile devices increasing globally, Instagram was  a serious threat to the core of Facebook, which it could not afford to ignore.

With Instagram being all about photos and mobile, it not only addresses 2 major growth points of Facebook, but also safeguards against any future threats in those areas.

Although Mark Zuckerberg in his post has been clear that Instagram will be a separate entity and they will independently take the app & the brand forward – One thing is for sure, Instagram may soon see some core Facebook features added to it.

Although Valuation is very high, the synergies are just too great to be ignored.

I can say Facebook – Instagram is a great marriage , albeit a real expensive one… What is your take?

Related posts:

1. Customer Acquisition through Social Media!
2. Thomas Cook India Acquisition – Who will it be?
3. Facebook Statistics, Funding & more [Infographic]
4. Global Recovery sees India Inc Moving Ahead with Acquisition-led Growth Plans

Here are the Funding and M&A deals happened in India for the week starting March 26^th 2012.

Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [Mar 26^th to April 1^st 2012] 

Funded Company / Acquired Company	Deal Type	Who Funded / Who Acquired	Funding Amount	Remarks
Kalki Communication Technologies	Private Equity	IFC & Global Environment Fund	Rs. 23 Crore	Not Available
Raining Clouds Technology Pvt. Ltd.	Seed Funding	Vijay Shekhar Sharma	Rs. 1 Crore	to develop their Appsurfer App further
Staffoncontract.com	Seed Funding	Vishal Gondal	Rs. 50 Lakh	To develop platform further & market it
Exotel Telecom Pvt. Ltd.	Series A Funding	Mumbai Angels & Blume Ventures	Rs. 2.5 Crore	For Tech development & marketing of their cloud telephony platform
iimjobs.com	Seed Funding	One97, IVP & other individual investors	Undisclosed	To develop better platform & ramp up engg team.
Linc Pen & Plastics Ltd	Minority Stake	Mitsubishi Pencil Co. Ltd	Rs. 20 Crore	(13.5% stake) strategic investement
Proof of Performance Data Services Pvt Ltd	Series A	Yournest Angel Fund	Undisclosed	To strengthen its technology platform & Infrastructure
Yatra.com	Minority Stake	Salman Khan	Undisclosed	5% stake in Yatra.com
Universal Components	Majority Stake	TVS Group	Rs. 100 Crore	For general business expansion
Grover Vineyards	Merger	Vallee de Vin	N/A	to make joint entity – Grover Zampa Vineyards
Spear Logistics Pvt Ltd	Series B	Ambit Pragma Ventures	Rs. 7 Crore	For Business expansion
Enterprise Nube Services Pvt Ltd	Series A	Accel Partners	Rs. 8 Crore	N/A
IFMR Rural Channels & Services	Series A	Lok Capital + 1	Rs. 26 Crore	For offering financing in rural locations
Shriram Housing Finance Limited	Private Equity	Valiant Partners	Rs. 170 Crore	N/A
E2E Rail	Series A	VenturEast Proactive Fund and Zephyr Peacock	Rs. 30 Crore	For General Expansion
Mobimasta	Acquisition	Affle & D2 Communication	N/A	To scale up Indian Business
Tulsi Castings and Machining Ltd	Private Equity	India Venture Advisors	Rs. 40 Crore	N/A
Games2Win.com	Minority Stake	Nirvana Venture Advisors	N/A	10% Stake

[We are sometimes unable to get the funding amounts, as they are not disclosed. However, we update this sheet when it becomes public. If you are aware of amounts, and they have not been put up in the table, please do get in touch with us.]

You can check out coverage of all the previous Weekly Funding & M&A deals round-up here.

Note: Even though we try our best to bring you all the funding / M&A deals of the week, there are always ones which go un-reported. Most of the deals which we put up here are published on multiple websites, and we do refer them to provide the accuracy of deal in question. If you know of the any that we have not covered, please let us know and we will be more than happy to add it to the list!

Related posts:

1. Indian Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [Feb 26th to March 4th 2012]
2. Indian Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [March 19th to March 25th 2012]
3. Indian Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [March 12th to March 18th 2012]
4. Funding, M&A Deals of the Week [Feb 13th to Feb 26th 2012]

Thomas Cook India has been a household Indian name since 1881 for forex and other travel services such as corporate travel, international and domestic holiday packages, Passport / visa services etc. Currently, this travel giant operates in 78 Indian cities at 209 locations. Thomas cook currently employs over 2,700 people across its Indian offices and also runs offices in Mauritius and Sri Lanka. A subsidiary of Thomas Cook Group plc UK (TCG), Thomas Cook India has won a host of awards for excellence in travel services, the most recent being the ‘Most Trusted Tour Operator’ at the Times Travel Honours Event in 2011. The company was also accredited with the P1 rating. This is the highest financial rating given by Crisil, according to the official Thomas Cook India website.

Thomas Cook Plc (UK) announced in February 2012 that they were receiving a lot of interest by third parties to buy stakes in the Indian unit. This initiated a formal sales and bidding process in India. TCG holds a 77.1% stake in the Indian unit and has decided to sell the same to reduce their debt. In India, controversy and speculation amongst the bidders included names of Bain Capital Advisors (India) Pvt. Ltd, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) India Advisors Pvt. Ltd, Actis Advisors Pvt. Ltd, Travelex, Carlyle Group, Chinese firm HNA, Cox and Kings India Ltd, Hong Kong’s Bravia Capital, TA Associates, Everstone Capital and Kuoni Travel (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Credit Suisse, Thomas Cook’s advisory on the auctioning process, shortlisted five contenders out of the above list for the bidding process, namely Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) India Advisors Pvt. Ltd, Travelex, Carlyle Group, Fairbridge Capital and a Japanese travel agency, TOI reported.

The breaking news on this bid is that Tata Capital, the financial services division of the Tata Group has also emerged as a contender to buy Thomas Cook’s Indian unit. ET is estimating that since Tata Capital has been showing interest in expanding its forex and travel cards business since a while, it is likely to scale out its operations through acquisition of the forex business of Thomas Cook India. The forex section of Thomas Cook India contributes to 65% of the company’s revenues.

What’s in for the successful bidder?

ET reported that the all the shortlisted bidders must give their offers by the second week of April 2012. The highest bidder emerging out of the lot will be granted exclusivity for 4 to 6 weeks so that they can carry out due diligence and formalities for the sale. The deal will be finalized at a discount to the market price and the successful bidder will be allowed to use the Thomas Cook’s existing brand name for a minimum of 7 years. Bids have ended up coming in the range of Rs 50-60 a share according to various media reports.

Here’s a quick timeline of Thomas Cook India major operations.

• 2000 - Travelex bought Thomas Cook’s worldwide forex business and has been showing interest in acquiring the India unit since then.
• 2006 - Thomas Cook India purchased LKP Forex to scale the forex business.
• 2006 – Thomas Cook India was sold to Dubai Financial for 70 million dollars after two of its main stakeholders Lufthansa and Karstadt pulled out.
• 2008 – The Indian unit was bought back for 300 million dollars.
• 2012 – Thomas Cook India is up on sale again.

What’s enticing all these players to set shop in the dynamic Indian marketplace? Obviously, the growing tourism industry in India and the increasing upper middle class with disposable income who can afford these travel services. End of April-May 2012 will tell us who Thomas Cook India went to.

Do you want to take a guess, who will that be?

Related posts:

1. Global Recovery sees India Inc Moving Ahead with Acquisition-led Growth Plans
2. Funding, Mergers & Acquisition deals of the week [June 27]
3. Customer Acquisition through Social Media!
4. Bharti Airtel’s Wild Acquisition Plans Seem To Be Backfiring