Hyderabad-based Rainbow Hospitals, which primarily focuses on paediatric and maternal care, has raised $17.5 million (Rs 107.3 crore) from the UK-based development financial institution CDC Group Plc and Dubai-based private equity investor Abraaj Group for the sale of an undisclosed stake.

Rainbow, which started as a 60-bed hospital in 1999, currently runs six hospitals in the country. Four of these hospitals are based in Hyderabad while the other two are in Vijayawada and Bangalore.

The company plans to expand its number of beds from the current 450 to 1,000 by 2017. It will also look at expanding to Chennai, Pune, Visakhapatnam and Kurnool, among other cities.

“The patient investment approach taken by CDC and Abraaj gives us the space to focus on longer-term business quality and performance essential in multi-specialty paediatric care,” said Ramesh Kancharla, chairman and managing director of Rainbow Hospitals.

The hospital chain will also quadruple its workforce from the current 1,000 as it plans to increase its portfolio.

Rainbow Hospitals is the first direct investment in India by the CDC Group, which is a wholly owned development finance institution of the UK government’s Department for International Development.

CDC, which focused on fund-to-fund investment across Asia and Africa, changed its strategy to focus only on South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. It also announced that it would make debt and direct investments in these geographies as opposed to a limited partner’s role in private equity/venture capital funds.

“This is an exciting first direct equity investment in India for CDC. We will work closely with the company to give it the long-term capital and support it needs to build the business,” said Srini Nagarajan, CDC’s regional director for South Asia.

For Abraaj Group, the other private equity player investing in Rainbow Hospitals, this is the 28th investment in India. The PE player manages $7.5 billion across 25 sector-specific and country-specific funds, and invests in growth markets such as the South-east Asia, West Asia, Africa, Latin America and Central Asia.

“There is a pressing requirement in the Indian healthcare sector for paediatric healthcare infrastructure due to the demographics of the country, which witness high fertility, maternal and infant mortality rates,” Balaji Srinivas, managing director of Abraaj Group, said in a statement.

Last year, Abraaj Group acquired Aureos Capital, a global private equity fund management group investing in small and medium-sized enterprises across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Indian healthcare services space, which forms more than 60 per cent of the healthcare sector in the country, has seen a high number of PE investments this year. Some of the recent deals include DEG investing $12.21 million in Ivy Hospitals, IFC and Standard Chartered investing over $46 million in Fortis Healthcare and Multiples Alternate Asset Management investing $33.15 million in Vikram Hospitals, among others.

source: http://www.in.reuters.com / Reuters / source: by VCCircle.com / Wednesday – August 14th, 2013

Hyderabad : 

The Four Soft board has decided to sell its IT solutions business and its stake in all its foreign subsidiaries to the UK-based Kewill group for a consideration of $43.4 million.

“The transaction for the business is valued at $22.5 million and investments in the share capital of foreign subsidiaries are valued at $20.9 million, making a total deal value of $43.4 million. The deal is expected to close in 90 days, subject to statutory approval and closing processes,” the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange on Saturday.

The Hyderabad-based company, promoted by Palem Srikanth Reddy, provides IT solutions to logistics and transportation industries.

The board, which met here on Saturday, considered the ‘slump sale’ after discussing Transport, I.T. Solutions Private Ltd (a Kewill group company) proposal to acquire the business. The proposal also included purchase of stake in the company’s foreign arms.

The promoter will adhere to a five-year non-compete and non-solicit agreement with the acquirer. Srikanth Reddy, who is also the Chairman and Managing Director, told Business Line that the company could tap opportunities in testing services, big data analytics, as also media and entertainment industries.

For the quarter ended June 30, the company registered a turnover of Rs 30 crore against Rs 32 crore in the same period last year. It made a net profit of Rs 4 crore (Rs 2.76 crore). For the full year 2012-13, the company made a net profit of Rs 11 crore on a turnover of Rs 132 crore.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Industry> Info-Tech / by K. V. Kurmanath  kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in / Hyderabad – August 10th, 2013

AMD today announced the opening of a new design centre in Hyderabad, featuring lab facilities dedicated to furthering both software and hardware technologies at the heart of AMD’s Accelerated Processing Units (APUs.)

In a ceremony held today, the new design centre was inaugurated by Rory Read, president and chief executive officer at AMD.

“Our Hyderabad Design Centre will play an important part in that mission as the team works in concert with our other design centers around the world to deliver AMD’s next round of innovative products.”

Located at Raheja Mindspace, HITEC City, Madhapur, in the heart of Hyderabad’s technology hub, the new facility features 175,000 square feet of engineering labs, equipment and office space for the hundreds of engineers who work there to deliver System-On-Chips (SOCs) for AMD and its global customers. AMD also has a design centre in Bangalore, as well as sales offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.

source: http://www.cdrinfo.com / CDR Info / Home> News> General Computing / Thursday – August 01st, 2013

Acquisition to provide Ramky access to high quality technology in the field of environment

Ramky Cleantech Services Pte Limited of Singapore, a wholly-owned subsidiary of  Hyderabad-based waste management company Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited (REEL), is eyeing to acquire an Australian environmental engineering and petrochemical services provider – Enviropacific Services.

“It will take time,” Ramky group chairman and managing director, Ayodhya Rami Reddy, who is currently in Singapore, told Business Standard confirming that discussions were being held.

Standard Chartered and IL&FS Investment Managers are private equity partners in REEL, a company belonging to the Rs 4,500-crore Ramky group.

According to Ramky Infrastructure executive director M Gautham Reddy, it might take 3-4 months to finalise the deal. Though the value of acquisition is yet to be finalised, it is expected to be less than $40 million.

He said acquisition of the Australian company would not only result in synergy of operations but also provide Ramky access to high quality technology in the field of  environment .

The Ramky group is a multi-disciplinary organisation with focus on the areas of civil, environmental and waste management infrastructure.

source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> Companies> News / by Prashanth Reddy Chintala / Hyderabad – July 23rd, 2013

Hyderabad:

Keste, the US-based Oracle software solutions and development company, has doubled its headcount at India Development Centre (IDC) here during the last 12 months.

With 120 employees at the IDC located at Hitech City here, the company continues to hire the best talent and has plans to expand its footprint in India to help service the Asia pacific region.

“During the last quarter, we’ve seen significant growth in our business servicing the high-tech, communications, manufacturing and life sciences markets in the region. The region offers huge growth potential for us and we are confident we will be able to maintain our growth,” CEO Howard Moore said in a statement released here Monday.

He said Keste was expanding its operations in India to meet the demands of customers in India and the Asia Pacific.

“This is part of our continuing effort to invest in the India market. A year ago we committed to doubling our headcount in 15 months. I’m very pleased that our growth and investment activity is significantly ahead of schedule,” said Ken Judd, CFO.

Keste provides enterprise solutions in areas, including customer experience, cloud integration and mobility. With hundreds of successful implementations and experience across the full Oracle stack of applications, middleware and hardware, Keste is able to deliver solutions that bring real business value and accelerate enterprise business strategy, added the statement.

IANS

source: http://www.zeenews.india.com / Zeebiz.com / Home> Business> Technology / by IANS / Monday – July 26th, 2013