CX Partners, Warburg in final race to pick Biyani's stake in Biba

Biba, with a turnover of Rs 300 crore, valued at about 4 times sales revenue, which comes about Rs 1,200 crore

Private equity firm CX Partners and global PE major Warburg Pincus are in the final race to acquire Kishore Biyani's 28.3% stake in Indian ethnic wear brand BIBA in a deal likely to be valued at Rs 300-350 crore, according to a person close to the development.

This will value BIBA, with a turnover of Rs 300 crore, at about 4 times its sales revenue, or Rs 1200 crore. Meena Bindra, the founder of BIBA launched the brand in 1986 with a line of Indian ethnic wear like salwar, kameez and dupattas.

BIBA’s first standalone store was opened in Mumbai in 2004 and today it has 87 standalone stores across India and plans to reach 150 stores by end of 2013.

CX Partners did not respond to a mailed questionnaire, but a source close to Biyani confirmed the negotiations.

Kishore Biyani is not only offloading his stake in BIBA, but also in AND, a brand by fashion designer Anita Dongre. BIyani currently holds 22-23% stake in AND and that is being valued at Rs 200 crore. General Atlantic is buying out Biyani's stake in AND.

Stake sell-offs in BIBA and AND will offer about Rs 500-550 crore to Kishore Biyani which will help him reduce debts in his group companies. As on December 2012, Future Retail's debt stood at Rs 7527.66 crore.

CX Partners, founded in 2009 by former head of Citi's India Venture Capital arm Ajay Relan, manages a fund with a corpus of $500 million. The PE firm has invested in Monnet Ispat, Imperative Hospitality, NTL Electronics India Ltd, Barbeque Nation, Matrix Cellular (International) Services Pvt. Ltd and Thyrocare Technologies Ltd.