Wednesday, September 30, 2009

L&T Fin pays Rs 45 cr for DBS Chola AMC

L&T Finance — the financial services arm of engineering major Larsen and Toubro — announced its entry into India’s mutual fund industry on Thursday, by buying DBS Cholamandalam Asset Management for Rs 45 crore.
The buyout values DBS Cholamandalam AMC — a unit of the joint venture between the Murugappa Group and Singapore’s DBS, at 1.55% of its total assets under management of Rs 2,893 crore on August 31.
Equirus Capital was advisor to L&T Finance for the deal, while Edelweiss Capital advised DBS Chola. Industry officials said the valuation is one of the lowest among the deals in the domestic mutual fund industry in the recent years.
In June, Japan’s Nomura bought a stake in LIC Mutual Fund for a valuation of about 2.5% of the fund’s assets under management. Last year, IDFC bought Standard Chartered Bank’s asset management business for a price that worked out to 5.7% of assets under management. Both these deals were considered expensive for the buyers, as a major chunk of the assets was debt at the time of acquisition.
Some in the industry believe that the deal is expensive for L&T as well, given the asset management company’s debt-laden asset mix. DBS Cholamandalam’s total assets comprises close to Rs 253 crore in equity and the rest in debt, according to data from Morningstar India, quoting AMFI figures.
The mutual fund industry has been abuzz with talks about DBS Cholamandalam AMC being on the block since 2007, though the company has officially denied it all the while. The current valuation is just a shade of what was offered to buy the AMC in 2007, said a person, who was familiar with the talks during the last stake sale attempt in 2007.
“The promoters were asking for 8% of the assets in 2007, when assets were over Rs 5,000 crore. What was offered was 6%,” said the person, on condition of anonymity. DBS Cholamandalam officials were unavailable to comment on the matter.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/indl-goods-/-svs/engineering/LT-Fin-pays-Rs-45-cr-for-DBS-Chola-AMC/articleshow/5058414.cms

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