Fabindia, a major Indian retailer of ethnic-inspired clothing and furniture, will file for an IPO worth $500 million or Rs.3,750 crore. Fabindia is backed by Premji Invest, the family office of the Wipro founder. Fab India is seeking valuations to the tune of $2 billion for the company. The issue is likely to predominantly be an offer for sale to give exit to early shareholders. Fabindia has a pedigree of over 60 years and was envisaged to showcase Indian handloom textiles to the world, with wares largely sourced from villages.
Reliance Industries is finalizing plans to invest in the Abu Dhabi Chemicals Derivatives Company (TA’ZIZ). It will be a chemical production partnership at the TA’ZIZ Industrial Chemicals Zone in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi. This will be Reliance’s first major investment in West Asia. The venture will operate a production facility for chlor-alkali, ethylene dichloride and polyvinyl chloride. The project will entail an overall investment of $2 billion. The project will commence around the year 2025 and the equity structure is under discussion
SpiceJet is hopeful of a favourable outcome to its appeal against the winding up petition by Madras High Court. Credit Suisse had filed a petition against SpiceJet for dues of $24 million post which the Madras High Court ordered the official liquidator to take over the assets of SpiceJet. This created panic among its creditors and suppliers so SpiceJet is engaging with them to allay fears. This pertains to a 2011 engine maintenance contract with SR Technics, which had been assigned to Credit Suisse for raising the funding.
Sebi amended rules for delisting equity shares following an open offer. In the new framework, promoters and acquirers must disclose their intention to delist the firm through an IPO. SEBI has also mandated that the acquirer must mandate a higher price for delisting with an appropriate premium. If the open offer leads to the delisting threshold of 90% being met, all tendering shareholders will be paid the indicative price. If open offer threshold of 90% is not met, all tendering shareholders will be paid open offer price.
In the monetary policy announcement on 08-December, RBI is expected to maintain status quo on key rates. While there were some expectations of a reverse repo rate hike, it now looks unlikely due to the Omnicron virus risk. That means, the repo rate would stay put at 4% and the reverse repo rate at 3.35%. The only question is whether the RBI would change the stance of monetary policy from accommodative to neutral? In last few months, RBI has been unhappy about the rampant growth in credit in the economy.
Car retailing platform, Spinny, raised $283 million in Series-E funding in a round led by ADQ of Abu Dhabi and Tiger Global. The indicative valuation assigned to Spinny in this round of funding is close to $1.8 billion. Spinny is in the online car retailing business and competes with the likes of CarTrade, Droom and Cars24. CarTrade did not have a very attractive listing and Droom IPO is expected to hit the IPO market soon. On a yoy basis, GMV of Spinny has grown 5-fold to $300 million and expected to touch $1 billion next year.
According to sources in the government, it is considering appointing SEBI as the nodal regulatory agency to oversee cryptocurrencies. This is yet to be confirmed by the government. The Cryptocurrency Bill is expected to be launched in the winter session of parliament. While there will not be a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies, the government does plan a proper framework to regulate crypto assets. So, the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum will not be banned for now. Crypto markets grew by 641% in India in last 1 year.
IL&FS Transportation Networks, part of the beleaguered IL&FS group, entered into a share purchase agreement with Axis Trustee Services to transfer 85.50% of the paid-up capital of the Moradabad Bareilly Expressway for a value of Rs.374 crore. IL&FS Transportation has appointed Axis Trustee for the IL&FS INVIT Fund. The entire sale is expected to be completed by 31st-Dec. This was after IL&FS got approval for launching Phase I of its INVIT from the NCLT. Now the road assets will be fully transferred to the INVIT.
