Prakash Inds allots warrants to Barclays

PRIVATE EQUITY WATCH

New Delhi-based diversified company Prakash Industries on Monday announced preferential issue of warrants worth Rs 44.44 crore to Barclays and a few domestic investment firms.

The Rs 1,000-crore firm said it would allot 5.55 million warrants to Barclays and "others", subject to the permission of its shareholders. The warrants would be priced at Rs 80 apiece and they could be converted into equal number of equity shares within 18 months.

Last year, Prakash Industries posted a net profit of Rs 133 crore on a turnover of Rs 1,048 crore. It is engaged in the steel, power, PVC pipes and black and white picture tubes businesses. 
 

M&A DEALS FROM AUGUST 17 TO 23
Bidder	Target	Sector	Value	Stake%	Type
Noor Investment, Ikarus Petro, Kuwait  Privatisation Project Investment, US-based
Lamb Company, NRI Investor	Delhi Stock Exchange	Financial Services	NA	21	PE/VC
Lehman Brothers	ECL Finance	Financial Services	45	26	PE/VC
The Blackstone Group	Gokaldas Exports	Consumer Goods	116	50.1	PE/VC
Greylock Partners and other unnamed Investors	TechProcess	Internet/ Ecommerce	NA	NA	PE/VC
Indecomm Global Services	Brainvisa Technologies	IT/ITeS	NA	100	Strategic/domestic
Dubai Ventures	Time BroadbandServices	Internet/ Ecommerce	NA	40	Strategic/domestic
Primus Retail	Weekender	Consumer Retail	9.5	100	Strategic/domestic
Standard Chartered	UTI Securities	Financial Services	36	49	Strategic/inbound
Baosteel trading and Visa Comtrade	Visa Bao	Industrial Products and Services	NA	49	Strategic/inbound
Cobra Beer	Regal Breweries	Consumer Goods	NA	76	Strategic/inbound
Educomp Solutions Limited	Authorgen Technologies	Education/ Elearning	NA	51	Strategic/outbound
ITC's Russell Credit	Technico Pty. Limited	Agri- Biotechnology		100	Strategic/outbound
JSW Steel	Jindal United Steel Corporation, Saw Pipes (US), Jindal Enterprises	Steel	940	90	Strategic/outbound
ORG Informatics	Satellite business of Belgacom	Telecommunications	NA	100	Strategic/outbound
Reliance Capital	Victory Transformer Transformer & Switchgear Limited	Industrial Products and Services	7.5	26
Source: Public information and PricewaterhouseCoopers analyses               NA=not available

The company did not divulge the identity of other investment companies.

When contacted, Prakash Industries' company secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal said they would furnish other details to the stock exchanges later. Agarwal declined to comment on the speculation that a big conglomerate was among the investment companies subscribing to the preferential issue.

According to Agarwal, the company would seek the shareholders' permission on the proposed transaction at an extra-ordinary general meeting on September 19.

Under the capital market regulations, the investors will have to fork out 10 per cent of the total investment at the time of subscription of the issue and the remaining 90 per cent at the time of conversion.

Post conversion of the warrants, the promoters' stake in the company will come down. However, the exact details of the promoters' shareholding, post conversion of warrants, could not be ascertained. Agarwal said, "We will inform the details in the notice of the EGM." The promoters now hold 67 per cent, he said.

Share prices of Prakash Industries jumped 5 per cent "� the maximum permissible increase of the stock in a trading session "� to Rs 87.70 on the BSE.