The week of big exits and the budget

The eleventh trading week of 2012 witnessed good amount of activity in the bulk deals section. It ended with the presentation of the union budget from Pranab Mukherjee.

Talking about bulk deals, on March 12 2012, Rupert Murdoch sold his entire stake in Hathway Cable to Providence Equity Advisors and Macquarie Bank for Rs. 358 crores. The deal was closed at an average price of Rs. 145/- per share. My calculations indicate that Rupert Murdoch made a mere 5% gain on his original investment in Hathway. Further, the huge 18% discount to the market price indicates that Rupert was finding it really hard to offload his stake in the company.

On March 14 2012, Kitara Capital (managed in India by Amitabh Chakraborty) bought shares worth Rs. 23.80 crores in Mumbai-based Supreme Infrastructure from Reliance Mutual Fund and the promoters of the company. Supreme Infrastructure (an entity of the Sharma family which owns large chunks of real estate in Powai) is involved in road projects across India. Kitara Capital is part of the Sultanate of Oman-based Ajit Khimji Group.

On the same date, V P Nandakumar of Manappuram Finance sold shares worth Rs. 144.65 crores in his company to investors like Baring India, Sequoia Capital and Siguler Guff. The shares were sold at an average price of Rs. 40/- per share.

Ashish Dhawan’s ChrysCapital was also seen buying 4.2 million shares of Karur Vysya Bank at an average price of Rs. 380/- through their fund Warhol Limited on March 16 2012. The seller here was India Max Investment Fund Limited.

Further, ICICI Emerging Sectors Fund continued to exit MCX India. On March 12 2012, the fund sold shares worth Rs. 31.7 crores in the company. This is in addition to the share sales of Rs. 56 crores done last week by ICICI Emerging Sectors Fund.

UK-based Coronation Investment Management Company, too, has been offloading shares in Educomp Solutions. The company sold shares worth Rs. 73 crores during the week. Malaysia’s SWF Khazanah also sold its entire stake of 4.17% in Yes Bank for Rs. 531 crores after holding it for five years.