Northgate to raise $26.5 million

Northgate Technologies Limited, a player in the online advertising and telecom sectors, has announced that the board has approved to raise funds worth $26.5 million by way of preferential allotment of 24,47,062 equity shares of Rs 10 each at a price of Rs 497.28 per share to foreign institutional investors.

The proposed allottees are UBS Securities Asia Limited A/c Swiss Finance Corporation (Mauritius) Limited (6,33,700 shares), Macquarie Bank Limited (6,33,700 shares), Copthall Mauritius Investments Limited (5,79,450 shares), India Capital Fund Limited (4,61,700 shares) and India Institutional Fund Limited (1,38,512 shares). The FII investment limit has been increased to 49 per cent from 24 per cent.

The company has also decided to increase its authorised share capital from Rs 18 crore to Rs 23 crore and to implement ESOP 2006 plan consisting of six lakh equity shares of Rs 10 each to the employees of parent company and its subsidiaries.

An extraordinary general meeting of the company will be called on October 25, 2006, to obtain the approval of the members of the company for the above mentioned purposes.

Northgate has also announced that the members have approved equity dividend of 20 per cent. The company, which has a data centre in London, also plans to set up another in Hong Kong.

Venkat Meenavalli, chairman and managing director of Northgate Technologies Limited, said, "We will initially invest $5-6 million for the centre in Hong Kong."

Northgate is also planning to enter the UBS phone and Mobile VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) market in the near future.

The company has already tied up with a US-based company with regard to personal digital assistants for Mobile VoIP.