Top five PE deals this yearThe top five deals this year accounted for 68.62% of the total deal value. The largest deal of this year was Centerbridge Partners investing $1,157.5 million in Senvion SE for 100% stake , while Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , SAIF Partners Fund III investing $635 million in Noida based One 97 Communications Ltd. for 27.60% stake. This is followed by $259.27 million investment made by International Finance Corp. and GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd. in Kolkata based Bandhan Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. for an undisclosed stake.

A Snapshot of PE activity & deals

Business Standard

Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) command a lion's share of viewership and ads. Here's a look at how they fare online

Hindi GECs ride the second screen wave

State taking most of the risk in shared projects is undesirable

PPP problems

The media must guard its reputation more carefully

The virtue of self-control

Ideas sourced from the Indian public have found a voice in the recent Railway and the Union Budgets. These include views on bio toilets, online payment for food, ideal railway stations, gold monetisation and sovereign bonds schemes and the need to have a new law to tackle benami property. Given this, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad proudly proclaimed that the Narendra Modi government was not only engaging the people of the country by seeking their ideas, it was also respecting them by acting on the feedback. He was speaking at the launch of a contest to source ideas from the people to develop a mobile application aimed at strengthening the prime minister's communication and interaction strategy.

In crowd we trust

On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha passed the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill but not before the Trinamool Congress' Saugata Roy told the House how it was "ironical" that what the "father proposes, the son disposes". Roy was referring to the fact that Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha introduced the Bill in the House in the absence of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and that it was Sinha's father, Yashwant Sinha, who had headed the parliamentary standing committee that had studied the insurance Bill from 2008 to 2011, suggesting as many as 88 amendments. Sinha senior was not in favour of increasing foreign equity in the insurance sector; the latest amendment provides for raising the foreign investment cap in the sector from 26 per cent to 49 per cent. Roy said this was yet another example of how, in the Bharatiya Janata Party, "the senior generation's prescriptions are overruled by juniors". Jayant took the criticism in good humour.

Generational shift

It was the turn of the Mahatma to help bureaucrats silence industrialists demanding tax deduction on corporate social responsibility expenses. At an interactive session with revenue department officials, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, one of the industrialists present pressed for such deduction arguing that social responsibility was the government's prerogative. He went on to say that the government would next ask corporations in India to shell out funds to run the police forces. As everyone turned to the Central Board of Direct Taxes chairperson for a response, she pointed at a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi displayed on one of the walls in the hall, and said, "I will only read out what is written on the photograph of Mahatma Gandhi." The quotation, scrawled at the bottom of Gandhiji's picture read: "Industry... should regard themselves as trustees and servants of the poor..."

Writing on the wall

Apropos the report "BBC's documentary on Delhi gang rape banned in India"(March 5), the outcry against the documentary "India's Daughter" is uncalled for and a government ban is futile. In this age of technology, where almost everyone has access to the internet, you cannot stop anyone from viewing anything just by getting a restraint order from the court.I think it is unfair to judge the documentary without viewing it. The documentary is chilling and correctly exposes the brutal reality of our male-dominated society, where women are victims of rape, domestic violence, dowry deaths, female infanticide and acid attacks. It shows the regressive mindset of the accused and his defence lawyers who blame the victim.The accused said that nothing had happened to many others who had committed similar heinous crimes but a big issue was made out of this particular incident. This shows that our failure to punish other offenders, including many politicians, who are convicted of crimes such as rape i

Letters: A regressive  mindset

This refers to the editorial "RBI's monetary response" (March 5). The 25-basis point rate cut announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is only symbolic. The repo rate is a signaling tool to help economic agents anchoring inflation expectation. In the absence of any explicit calibration of the policy rate with expected inflation level in the public domain, gauging the implication thereof would always be a matter of conjecture. However, the size of the rate cut tends to indicate the strength of conviction on the part of the central bank with regard to the sustainability of the apparently mitigating supply-side constraints, particularly in the food sector.The effects of governmental policy interventions and reforms towards easing of the supply-side constraints in the food sector on a sustained basis are not significantly discernible. The consumer price index continues to be prone to escalation on account of spikes in food prices due to supply-side shocks and inadequacies of the distri

Letters: RBI's conviction

This refers to the editorial "Sentiment success" (March 4). By and large, this year's budgeting exercises have been able to moderately stimulate the investors sentiments. It goes without saying that most of the capex expenditures in infrastructure are meant to boost the possibility of investment by institutional investors and entrepreneurs in different sectors.But unfortunately, the "ease of doing business" is not affected only by physical infrastructure or the availability of needed resources.In addition to the Budget allocation for various infrastructural projects, it also becomes mandatory, after the budgeting exercise, to monitor the progress to ensure that the expenditure from the taxpayers' money is yielding quick results. Another factor is the delay in approving projects or something related to starting a venture.If the Narendra Modi government becomes successful in actually reducing the hassles in getting approvals and, in particular, the land acquisition troubles, the budgetin

Letters: Real development

The RBI rate cut, together with the Budget proposals, will greatly improve sentiment

Go for growth - RBI repo rate cut will support fiscal push for investment: V Srinivasan

Multiple inter-meeting moves can potentially infuse a degree of unwarranted surprise and speculation about monetary policy

RBI should avoid repeated inter-meeting moves: Siddhartha Sanyal

All the 12 public sector banks (PSBs) which have been deprived of capital infusion by the government could face a serious challenge in raising equity capital due to their poor valuation scorecard. Barring one, all these banks are currently trading at deep discounts to their book values. Mounting bad loans have raised doubts among investors over the quality of the books of these banks. Ten out of these 12 lenders have reported gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of more than five per cent as of December-end 2014.Since the government has agreed to dilute its stake up to 52 per cent, there is lot of legroom available to these banks. However, given the poor valuations, the Centre isn't keen. The government has asked these lenders to to wait till valuations improve.Taking into account that regulatory forbearance on debt recast is to end on April 1, the asset quality pressure for PSBs, which share a disproportionate burden of stressed assets, is not likely to abate anytime soon. This could r

PSBs' poor valuations hurt equity-raising plans

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has followed the tradition of the Budget being a document that conceals more than it reveals.While there is an appreciation of the new direction, the common man's deserved expectation of an increase in the income tax exemption limit has not been considered. Instead, the service tax rate has been raised, which means you are taking away more money from the consumer. Regarding the figure of Rs 4,44,420, does our finance minister think that everyone has so much money to get this benefit? The worst segment is the senior citizen, who got a raw deal without any benefit. One hopes that the finance minister and other MPs cutting across party lines will urge not only for an increase in the tax exemption limits but also some relief to senior citizens.M B Balasubramanyam,  BengaluruLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201  ·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters

Letters: Relief to senior citizens

This refers to the report "India adopts flexible inflation targeting" (March 3). This move will infuse transparency in the thought process of policy-makers. At this stage of economic development, when analysts and economists dissect and find reasons or attribute motives for every utterance by the finance minister or Reserve Bank of India governor, such transparency will give some relief and make debates more focussed. Having said that, let us not talk too much about responsibility and accountability of either side. Like a railway timetable tells you about late running of trains, inflation targeting will tell you what was the aim of the policy-makers at a given time. Aberrations will be explained from time to time.M G Warrier,  ThiruvananthapuramLetters can be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:The Editor, Business StandardNehru House, 4 Bahadur Shah Zafar MargNew Delhi 110 002Fax: (011) 23720201  ·  E-mail: letters@bsmail.inAll letters must have a postal address and telephone number

Letters: A welcome move

This refers to Sreenivasan Jain's column "The noise around the land acquisition law" (The Thick of It, March 3). The controversy over the new land acquisition ordinance is both a clash of principles and political gamesmanship. It is also a fact that industry is sitting on acres of acquired land without investing and changing the end use from industrial to residential or commercial, and lakhs of land-losers are still awaiting rehabilitation. It is being wrongly depicted as a duel between those who want growth and those who don't, when the principles involved are fairly simple. Do the landowners enjoy their right to property only at the pleasure of the government? Should not the citizens be expected to sacrifice their personal interests for the benefit of the nation? Where should the balance be struck? The 1894 concept of 'divine right' is dead, and India is not the Soviet Union or China.Keeping the need to develop common assets such as irrigation, major and border roads, railways, and s

Letters: Law of the land

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sought legal opinion on whether it can offer daily updates of the auction bidding process that starts today, as it had in earlier instances. DoT officials said the Supreme Court order that it couldn't announce the results of the auction without its consent had made things fuzzy. Last week, the Supreme Court allowed fresh auction of spectrum but asked the government not to finalise the results without a go-ahead from the apex court. Many telecom operators have filed cases in various courts across India against the conditions prescribed by the government for the auction process. The Supreme Court will hear all the cases on March 26.

Crossed connection

Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's comments crediting not just the separatist Hurriyat but also Pakistan for the smooth Assembly elections in the state have embarrassed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) no end. Both Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have disassociated the government and the BJP from the comments. However, they were careful to stress that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-BJP coalition in the state would be guided by the common minimum programme, clearly keen not to rock the boat within two days of Sayeed's council of ministers being sworn in. BJP insiders concede that their MLAs and the rank and file were anxious that people might return to the tried and tested Congress in Jammu, if the BJP couldn't represent its interests in the state government. The region has traditionally voted for the Congress, as the party had more likelihood of forming a coalition with either the PDP or the National Conference. This is the first

Now or never

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) brass attended the oath-taking ceremony of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and his council of ministers in Srinagar on Sunday. Those present included not just Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah but also members of the BJP's 'Margdarshak Mandal' or mentor group, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. People were intrigued at Advani and Joshi being present at the event, for the two have remained largely ignored ever since the BJP reconstituted its parliamentary board, its highest decision-making body, and moved the two senior leaders to be part of its newly constituted 'Margdarshak Mandal'. According to people who have watched the BJP-PDP negotiations closely, it was Sayeed himself who invited Advani and Joshi to the swearing-in ceremony and the BJP leadership was left with little option but to acquiesce.

Welcome to the show

Budget has succeeded in keeping market mood positive

Business Standard

Business Standard

Page 471 - Business Standard