Indiainfoline Buys Two Companies

Indiainfoline.com, which operates in the business and finance space, announced yesterday that it had acquired two companies _ Agri Marketing Services and Indiafn. Agri Marketing - which the company acquired in an all-stock deal _ is engaged in the distribution of financial products including fixed deposits, mutual funds, and initial public offerings under the brand name of Intel Investor Services.

It has 32 branches across the country with over 30,000 customers. The total cost of acquisition, including the investments to be made in the near future, is to the tune of Rs 15 crore. The company has been renamed India Infoline.com Distribution Company. The chief executive officer of the company, V Rangaswamy, has been retained and R Subramanian, director, has joined the board of India Infoline.

 

"We hope to leverage their capabilities and offer our visitors information as well as transaction services on our website in a short time," said Nirmal Jain, managing director, India Infoline. Indiafn.com is a financial news and commentary website. It has been promoted by Ashu Dutt, a financial journalist, who has worked as a business news consultant and anchored a daily business and financial news program for Star News.

The deal was entirely paid for in cash. Dutt has also joined the board of India Infoline. Indiafn has redirected its universal resource locator to India Infoline. The company plans to revamp the content look and feel of the site and relaunch Indiafn in the next six-eight weeks.

Meanwhile, Indiainfoline.com has been valued at Rs 250 crore following the Rs 26-crore second round venture funding concluded with Intel and ICICI. In the first round of funding, which was concluded a year ago, the company was valued at Rs 45-50 crore, according to Nirmal Jain, managing director, India Infoline.