Persistent Systems to acquire Parx Werk

Indian Information technology services provider Persistent Systems Ltd has agreed to acquire Swiss Firm Parx Werk AG to strengthen its expertise in Salesforce Software.

Parx is a certified partner in Germany, Austria and Switzerland of Salesforce, an American cloud computing company that provides a cloud-based customer relationship management software. This is the second acquisition by Persistent of a Salesforce partner since March last year, when it had agreed to acquire Australia’s PRM Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd for an undisclosed amount.

Parx was incorporated in 2001. The company reported revenue of 8 million Swiss francs for the year ended December 2016. It recorded a 28% annual compound growth in revenue from 2014. Prior to its acquisition of Australia’s PRM Solutions, Persistent had signed an agreement in January 2016 to acquire Citrix Systems’ CloudPlatform and CloudPortal Business Manager Product lines for an undisclosed amount through its US subsidiary.

In 2015, Persistent had made two acquisitions. It acquired Ireland-based technology firm Aepona Holdings Ltd and US-based software company Akumina Inc. content management services business. Data, digital, IoT (internet of things) and platforms are the foundation of software-driven businesses. Parx brings a deep business domain understanding that complements our technology expertise.

Advent International acquires Dixcy Textiles

Advent International the leading US-based private equity investor, has acquired Dixcy Textiles Pvt. Ltd, the South Indian firm which sells leading innerwear brand Dixcy Scott.

The transaction is Advent’s fourth investment in India since 2015 following its purchase of equity stakes in Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals, QuEST Global Services and ASK Group. Dixcy Scott, endorsed by Bollywood star Salman Khan, competes with Page Industries Ltd, the licensee for the Jockey brand in India; Rupa and Co. Ltd, the owner of MacroMan, Frontline and Euro brands; Lux Industries Ltd, the owner of the Lux Cozi brand; and Dollar Industries Ltd, which sells brands such as Bigboss and Club in India.

Founded in 1982, Tirupur-based Dixcy is the exclusive manufacturer and marketer of several leading innerwear brands, including Dixcy Scott, Dixcy Scott UNO, Dixcy Josh and Dixcy & Slimz. The company also sells a premium range of products including casual wear such as track pants, shorts and polo t-shirts. Additionally, Dixcy has begun to expand internationally by placing its products in stores across the Middle East and Singapore, stated the company release. The company employs over 3,500 people and generated sales of Rs780 crore ($120 million) in fiscal year 2017.

The Indian underwear market is currently estimated at Rs24,000 crore and the segment has grown at 15% over 2010-15, according to a 2016 report by Intimate Apparel Association of India and Wazir Advisors. The underwear market is estimated to continue at the same growth rate over the next five years and is expected to become a Rs47,000 crore market, which is nearly 8% of the total estimated apparel market, by 2020, said the report.

Axis bank to buy Freecharge

Private sector lender Axis Bank Ltd is nearing a deal to buy digital payments platform Freecharge for Rs 350-400 crore in cash, giving much needed breathing space to Freecharge parent company Snapdeal, which is separately in talks to sell itself to larger rival Flipkart.

By buying Freecharge, Axis Bank will get a popular digital payments brand as well as access to high-quality technology that traditional companies typically struggle to build compared with internet start-ups. Freecharge had also held lengthy talks with Paytm (One97 Communications Ltd) but chose to go with Axis Bank as the bank offered a higher price.

The sale of Freecharge will mark the most stunning collapse in India’s start-up world, even more so than that of its parent company, which has seen its fortunes dip since the start of 2016. Snapdeal bought Freecharge for $400 million in April 2015 in what was then the largest start-up deal in India. Last year, Freecharge hit the market to raise funds separately. Until late January, Snapdeal was confident Freecharge would raise fresh capital at a valuation of $700-900 million.

The Snapdeal founders, and venture capital (VC) firms Nexus Venture and Kalaari Capital have been locked in a boardroom battle that has resulted in Snapdeal and Freecharge passing up funding deals, cutting jobs and being forced to seek buyers. SoftBank disagreed with the others over the firm’s valuation in a potential sale or funding round.

Michael Kors to acquire Jimmy Choo

Michael Kors Holdings Ltd agreed to buy Jimmy Choo Plc. for about $1.2 Billion, clinching the London based maker of strappy stilettos, handbags and perfume.

The handbag maker will pay 230 pence a share for the luxury shoemaker. The price is equal to about 17.5 times Jimmy Choo’s adjusted Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for 2016. The Jimmy Choo brand rose to prominence in the late 1990s, boosted by high-profile devotees including the late Princess Diana and the fictional Carrie Bradshaw in television series “Sex and the City.”

The deal comes amid consolidation in the luxury industry, with Michael Kors rival Coach Inc. agreeing to buy Kate Spade & Co. in early 2017. Jimmy Choo was acquired by private-equity investors three times before being bought by JAB Holding Co. for more than £500 million in 2011.

Jimmy Choo was started in 1996 by British Vogue editor Tamara Mellon and designer Jimmy Choo. Its stilettos, which often cost north of $1,000, quickly became a favorite among celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Princess Diana. Jimmy Choo has more than 150 stores around the world.

Yatra acquires Air Travel Bureau

Yatra, the NASDAQ listed online travel Company, has entered into an agreement to acquire Air Travel Bureau Ltd, which it says is India’s largest independent corporate travel services provider, with gross bookings of Rs 1500 crores, and a client base of over 400 large and medium businesses across India.

ATB is a 30 year old company and claims that it can help companies save up to 20% of their corporate travel costs. For ATB, they’ll also get access to Yatra’s aggregation of hotels, which they can offer to their clients. According to ATB’s website, they have their own online booking tool with web-fares; travel policy compliance tools, built-in trip authorization and travel notifications, and a real-time view of travel spend for travel managers, apart from integration with ERP solutions like SAP and Oracle.

The acquisition of ATB essentially helps Yatra strengthen its position in the more reliable corporate travel business vertical, even as it tries to find its own space in a market that the MakeMyTrip - Goibibo combine dominate. In July 2016, Yatra had signed a reverse-merger agreement with US-based special purpose acquisition company Terrapin 3 Acquisition Corp, which was listed on the NASDAQ, paving the way for a back-door listing of the second Indian online travel services provider in the US.

Yatra was founded in 2006 by former Ebookers Group (UK) executives Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra. Amin is now chief information officer and Chopra is executive vice president of operations. The company is backed by a string of venture capital, private equity and strategic investors. In October last year, it sold a small stake to Reliance Industries Ltd as part of a deal linked to an existing partnership where Reliance pre-installed the Yatra mobile app in its Lyf-branded 4G handsets.

Zee Media Corporation to buy BTVi

Zee Media Corporation is in advanced talks to acquire Business Broadcast News, an Anil Ambani owned company that operates English Business News channel BTVi. Zee Media could pay between Rs 80 crore and Rs 100 crore for the company.

In November last year, Zee Entertainment Enterprises, another Essel Group company, acquired the television broadcast business of Ambani owned Reliance Broadcast Networks (RBN). At the time, Zee Media had picked a 49% stake in Radio business, operated under Big FM umbrella, with an understanding to acquire the remaining 51% after March next year.

While RBN ran entertainment channels Big Magic and Big Ganga, the news channel, BTVi was part of a different company, Business Broadcast News, while Ambani had acquired from former UTV boss Ronnie-Screwvala. English business news is a small genre in the TV space with two strong players: Times Group-owned ET Now and Mukesh Ambani owned CNBC TV18.

After suffering losses for many years, Prannoy Roy's NDTV shut down its English business news channel, NDTV Profit, in June this year. BTVi continues to remain on air. BTVi was launched by Screwvala in April 2008 as UTVi and soon it was renamed Bloomberg UTV, after the company signed a content and licensing deal with American media and data company Bloomberg. In 2012, when Screwvala sold UTV to the Walt Disney group, the Reliance Group acquired Screwvala stake in Business Broadcast News and renamed the channel Bloomberg TV India.

In January last year, Business Broadcast News and Bloomberg decided not to renew the licensing agreement. On August 1 Bloomberg TV India was renamed BTVi. Bloomberg, meanwhile, entered into a joint venture with Raghav Bahl owned Quintillion Media to launch a business new channel, Bloomberg Quint. Bahl is awaiting the broadcast license from the information and broadcasting ministry to launch the channel.

Google acquires Halli Labs

American Technology giant Google has acquired Bangalore based artificial Intelligence firm Halli Labs for an undisclosed sum. The firm becomes the latest AI start up to be snapped by a technology giant after a spate of similar acquisitions by firms such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple among others.

Halli Labs was founded with the goal of applying modern AI and Machine Learning techniques to old problems and domains. In order to help technology enable people to do whatever it is what they want to do, easier and better. According to research by CB Insights, 34 Artificial Intelligence startups have been acquired in the first quarter of this year, which is double the number compared to the year-ago period.

The study also notes that Google has been the most aggressive in this space with 11 acquisitions since 2012 followed by Apple, Intel and Facebook. Some of the acquisitions by Google in AI include firms such deep learning and neural network startup DNNresearch from the computer science department at the University of Toronto in 2013; British company DeepMind Technologies in 2014 for $600 Million, visual search startup Moodstock, and bot platform Api.ai last year.

It acquired predictive analytics platform Kaggle in the first quarter of this year. Even though India has become the third largest market for start-ups, acquisitions by global technology companies have been few. Some of the notable ones include ZipDial which was acquired by Twitter in January 2015 and LittleEyeLabs that was snapped up by Facebook in January 2014.

Byju buys TutorVista and Edurite

Education Technology start-up Byju has acquired global education company Pearson Plc.’s TutorVista and Edurite for an undisclosed amount, in a move aimed at expanding global reach as well as offerings for students.

TutorVista gets about 70% of the traffic on its website from the US. Pearson in 2009 acquired a 17% stake in Bangalore-headquartered TutorVista and in January 2011 purchased another 59% stake for Rs577 crore. It increased its controlling stake to 80% from 76% in the same year. In February 2013, it acquired the remaining 20%.

TutorVista operates in four business segments-online tutorials; digital content and information and communication technologies for schools; test preparation and offline coaching to students; and the management of K-12 schools. TutorVista had acquired Edurite in 2007. Today, Edurite sells educational CDs and DVDs.

Byju has been one of the few growth stage start-ups to have raised multiple rounds of funds in 2016, apart from food tech start-up Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd). The company raised about $75 million from Sequoia Capital and Belgian family office Sofina in March 2016. In September, Byju raised $50 million in a round led by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, becoming the first Asian investment for the personal fund set up by Facebook Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. In December, the company raised another $15 million from World Bank arm International Finance Corp.

BookMyShow acquires Burrp

Online entertainment ticketing firm BookMyShow (BMS) has acquired Burrp, a Mumbai based local restaurant recommendation engine, from Network 18. The acquisition is being carried out on a slump sale basis by Foodfesta Wellcare, an arm of Big Tree—an associate firm of Reliance Industries, which is also the promoter group company of Network18.

Burrp is India’s oldest food-tech business and currently lists over 56,000 restaurants across 12 cities. Burrp revenue during the 2016-17 fiscal year was Rs56.67 lakh accounting for 0.69% of Network18’s turnover. The net worth as on 31 March 2017 stood at a negative Rs28.89 crore.

It further said considering the “insignificant contribution” of Burrp to revenue and the investments and the focus required to be made, Network18 had decided to divest the Burrp business. The transaction is at arms’ length basis and being a slump sale does not have any impact on the shareholding pattern of the company.

Founded in 2006, Burrp was a prominent player in the restaurant discovery space until it lost ground to competitor Zomato. BookMyShow has been focusing on transforming into a complete entertainment destination as it faces competition from new players like Paytm.