Nippon Life to buy Mitsui Life

Nippon Life Insurance Co., Japan’s biggest life insurer by assets plans to acquire Mitsui Life Insurance Co. Nippon Life plans to offer 300 Billion yen to 400 Billion yen for at least an 80% stake in Mitsui Life.

Buying Mitsui Life would contrast with a wave of multibillion dollar takeovers abroad by Japanese insurers as the country aging population limits growth prospects at home. Nippon Life plans to spend as much as 500 Billion yen on acquisitions including overseas insurers and asset managers.

Osaka based Nippon Life has been taking minority stakes in companies such as AIA Group Ltd, in Hong Kong, Post Advisory Group in the US, Indonesia Sequis Life and Reliance Group in India. Purchasing the company would help Nippon Life vie with Dai-ichi Life as Japan’s largest earner of insurance premium income. Nippon life got 5.37 Trillion yen from premiums in the year ended March, and Mitsui Life had 545 Billion yen.

Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. agreed this month to purchase Symetra Financial Corp for about $3.8 Billion. Tokio Marine Holdings Inc. agreed in June to acquire HCC Insurance Holdings Inc. for about $7.5 Billion and Dai-ichi Life struck a deal last year to buy protective Life Corp. for more than $5 Billion.

Fitbit enters Indian Market

Fitbit has formally entered the Indian Market by launching its complete range of fitness bands both online and offline and is aiming to become the No. 1 player in local market in the near future. The company expects India to be among its top 5 markets in next couple of years. The Indian market is currently led by Chinese company Xiaomi with its Mi Band.

Founded by James Park and Eric Friedman in 2007, San Francisco based Fitbit claims to lead the US Fitness tracker market with an 85 percent share as of March 2015, up from 67 percent a year earlier. Its revenue more than tripled from a year earlier in the quarter through March 2015. Fitbit product can be synchronized with more than 200 smartphones running on iOS, Android and Windows operating systems, as well as Apple Mac OS.

In India, the market of wearable is embryonic, selling a handful of products like smart watches and fitness brands launched by handset makers such as Samsung, Sony, Motorola, and Alcatel One touch. The fitness band segment has lately seen some action with players like Xiaomi, Micromax, Goqii making their products available at competitive price points. Fitbit too soft launched its bands in June, offering them on Amazon India.

The company will now offer its products through partnerships with Reliance Digital, Croma and Helios, which sell Fitbit seven products. There are several cheaper products available in Indian Market from rival companies. Sales of wearable devices such as smart watches and fitness bands in India totaled one lakh units in 2014 and are expected to grow to a million in 2015. Indian market reached three lakh units by the end of the second quarter of 2015. 

Ixigo acquires IndianBackPacker.com

Mobile travel search firm Ixigo has acquired all intellectual property of Desi Backpacking Travelers Pvt. Ltd, the company that runs IndianBackPacker.com for an undisclosed amount. This is the first acqui-hiring deal for Ixigo.

Acqui-hiring is the process by which one company acquires another to gain access to its employees. In such an acquisition, the acquiring company may or may not have any interest in the target company products and services. The company wants to build a strong connect with communities of travellers who possess a shared passion, purpose or taste.

Ixigo recently received an investment from smartphone manufacturer Micromax and is looking to grow five-fold to reach over 30 Million monthly active mobile users by the end of 2016. There is a clear opportunity to build a community platform that enhances engagement and provides authentic and unbiased curated content for Indian Travellers.

Aricent Acquires SmartPlay

Aricent Inc., a US based company providing Software and engineering services, has acquired Bangalore based Chip design services firm SmartPlay Technologies Pvt. Ltd. for around $180 Million. This is one of the biggest acquisitions in the semiconductor space in India. It is also Aricent fifth and the biggest ever acquisition in the country.

SmartPlay has around 1,200 employees in India, Germany, Singapore and the US. The acquisition will also expand Aricent 10,000 strong engineering team, which caters to nine core industries including telecommunications, networking, consumer electronics, industrial automation, semiconductor, automotive, internet services, consumer and enterprise software, media and entertainment.

The acquisition follows France based Technology consulting firm Altran acquisition of India based SiCon Design Technologies last month and the acquisition of Bengaluru based Cosmic Circuits in 2013 by Cadence Design Systems of the US, and demonstrates India’s growing and deep strengths in semiconductor design. SmartPlay was founded in 2008.

Aricent started in late 1990s as Hughes Software, a firm that was acquired by Flextronics International. In 2006, private equity major Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. acquired a majority stake in the venture and renamed it Aricent. Aricent previously acquired four other Indian firms – FutureSoft, Emuzed, Deccanet and Tenet Technologies. 

Thomas Cook India Acquires Kuoni Group

Travel major Thomas Cook India backed by billionaire investor Prem Watsa Fairfax Financial Holdings has acquired Swiss Tourism major Kuoni Travel business in India and Hong Kong for Rs. 535 crore. Post the acquisition, both India and Hong Kong travel businesses will become subsidiaries of Thomas Cook and would function independently.

The Kuoni brand is licensed to Thomas Cook for one year in India and for five years in Hong Kong. All other brands of Kuoni such as SOTC, SITA and Distant Frontiers are transferred with the businesses. The acquisition is expected to help Thomas Cook to enhance its offerings on inbound, outbound, and corporate travel. Brands of Kuoni, especially SITA is strong in inbound offerings.

Kuoni was founded in 1906 and entered India in 1997 by acquiring SOTC Tours, which was one of pioneers of foreign tours in the country. Three years later, it took over SITA World Travels, a specialist inbound tours. SITA is said to be the largest inbound tour operators in India and with this acquisition, Thomas Cook can move up to the top rank in the inbound market.

In January this year, Kuoni had announced that it will exit its tour business in India and other parts of the world to focus on its core business as a service provider to the travel industry and governments, making it largely a B2B player. With the sale of its tour operations in India and Hong Kong, the company has completed the sale of its outbound business.

Housing to Buy Homebuy360.com

Softbank backed Housing.com, owned and operated by Locon Solutions Private Limited, is in advanced talks to acquire Homebuy360.com, a Koramangala based RETech startup that connects builders, brokers and buyers. Housing will pay close to Rs. 5 Crore for cloud based Real Estate startup.

This is Housing third acquisition. In May this year, it acquired Delhi based Realty Business Intelligence private limited, an information portal focused on the realty industry for Rs.10 Crore. In March, it acquired Real Estate focused online discussion platform, Indian Real Estate Forum for Rs. 8 Crore. Earlier this year, it was seeking to buy real estate data analytics platform PropEquity for an estimated deal value of around Rs. 80-85 Crore but later in May it called off the negotiations.

As of now, the company is present in seven cities, including Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Nagpur, and Delhi and has 35 real estate developers on board like Pride Purple, Vaswani group, The Address Makers, PBEL, and Puranik Developers. The portal operates on various revenue models for developers, including pay per user, pay over time, pay as you sell and pay per project model.

Airtel Acquires YTS Solutions

Bharti Airtel Ltd has acquired financial solutions firm YTS Solutions for an undisclosed amount and announced appointment of the latter co-founder Manish Khera as CEO of its mobile wallet service Airtel M Commerce Services. The acquired business will be integrated with the operations of Airtel Money Services Ltd.

Based out of Mumbai, YTS has been developing financial products focused on mass market and micro-transactions. This acquisition will expand Airtel portfolio in the mobile commerce segment and bring in a host of new product capabilities targeted at migrants in urban cities and their families in rural towns and villages.

The acquisition, the first such by an Indian Telco in the mobile commerce segment, will help in expanding the portfolio of Airtel Money, a mobile wallet, even as the Telco awaits the Reserve Bank of India decision on its application for a payments bank license. The acquisition is the first of its kind among Telecom service providers who offer mobile wallets.

In 2011, AMSL announced the launch of Airtel Money and in January 2015, it applied for a Payment Bank License. Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator with a customer base of over 230 Million, covers 430,000 towns and villages backed by 1.5 Million distribution outlets. Other Telecom providers such as, Vodafone has M-Pesa, Idea Cellular has Idea Money and Tata Teleservices has MRupee, and all of them compete with the likes of Paytm, MobiKwik, PayU and Oxigen for a share of the fast growing mobile commerce pie.

Yahoo to acquire Polyvore

Yahoo Chief executive officer Marissa Mayer is pushing to add more news, entertainment and shopping information to the web portal in order to draw a bigger audience and sell advertising. Yahoo Inc. is buying shopping service Polyvore Inc., seeking to improve its online fashion content and boost shopping related advertising.

Polyvore, which combines social and e-commerce, tools for apparel and accessories, will initially be integrated into Yahoo’s Magazines that focus on beauty and style. Polyvore lets users put together themed collections of items, like those seen in fashion magazines. People can browse through the collections and then buy the items. Polyvore will add more than 350 retailers to Yahoo’s advertising platform.

Polyvore backers include Goldman Sachs, DAG Ventures, and Benchmark Capital. The company had raised $22 Million. Earlier this year, Yahoo unveiled new financial metric tracking revenue in its four key areas of growth: mobile, video, native, and social, or MaVeNS. The idea was to focus investors’ attention on the areas of the company that are growing while diverting their focus from its shrinking desktop display and search ads.

BNP Paribas acquires Sharekhan

BNP Paribas is a French bank and financial services company with global headquarters in Paris. It was formed through the merger of BNP and Paribas in 2000. The Global financial services group has announced that it has acquired retail broking firm Sharekhan for more than Rs. 2,000 crore, one of the earliest brokerage houses in India.

The bank added that Sharekhan will join BNP Paribas personal investors division, which is engaged in retail brokerage and digital banking services with 1.7 Million clients in Europe. The deal has been under negotiation for close to six months and had seen interest from bulge bracket private equity firms like Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic. Domestic banks like IndusInd Bank Ltd too had expressed interest, but withdrew from the race.

Existing shareholder in Sharekhan include Citi Venture Capital International, Barings Asia Private Equity, IDFC and Samara Capital. Sharekhan is the first independent and third retail brokerage firm in India. Sharekhan will serve as a platform for the group strategy in India to offer a comprehensive range of products from pure brokerage to asset based investment services including mutual funds and savings products.

Sharekhan was incorporated in 1995 and started offering broking services to non-institutional clients in 2000. In 2007, CVCI, Samara Capital and IDFC Limited acquired about 75% stake in Sharekhan. The new investors acquired the stake owned by GA Global investments, HSBC Private Equity, and the Morakhias. In February 2008, Baring Private Equity Asia IV Mauritius Holdings bought 12% stake in Sharekhan.

Teva to Buy Allergan Generics

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. is an international pharmaceutical company headquartered in Israel. It specializes in primarily in generic drugs. It is the largest generic drug manufacturer in the world and one of the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies worldwide. The Industry has agreed to buy Allergan generic drugs business for $40.5 Billion.

Allergan generic business is generally seen as a better fit than Teva previous target Mylan because it will improve Teva distribution channels and because Allergan is strong in bio similar drugs. At the same time, Teva dropped its $40 Billion bid for Mylan, which hit a snag when a Dutch foundation linked to Mylan bought temporarily control of half the company in an attempt to block the takeover.

Allergan Generic is expected to contribute about $2.7 Billion in earnings before interest, taxes, and other items next year. Following the completion of the acquisition, Teva is expected to have pro forma sales of approximately $26 Billion worldwide and cash flow of about $6.5 Billion in 2016. Teva expects a double digit increase in its non-GAAP earnings per share in 2016 due to the acquisition.

Teva is Israel largest drug company and has long been a source of pride for Israelis. The company dates back to 1901, when its founders launched a small importer of medications. According to the company’s website, it began producing drugs in the 1930s. 

Lupin acquires Temmler Pharma

A day after announcing $880 Million acquisition in the US, drug maker Lupin will acquire specialty product portfolio from German company Temmler Pharma for an undisclosed amount. Temmler business has a strong strategic fit with Lupin Hormosan business in Germany and enables Lupin to bring an enhanced specialty CNS portfolio to German market.

Established in 1917, Temmler is a part of Aenova Group, a pharmaceutical contract manufacturer. Hormosan, also a German Pharma company was acquired by Lupin in 2008. Based in Marburg, Germany, Temmler has a specialty portfolio of 13 products including key Central Nervous System products and specialty products that address rare disease areas like Myasthenia Gravis, Huntington disease as well as fast growing dermatology products for anti-wart treatment.

This is Lupin sixth acquisition in last 18 months. In February 2014, Lupin had acquired Netherland based Nanomi for an undisclosed amount. A month later, it acquired control of Mexican company Grin. In May this year, it bought Brazilian company Medquimica Industria Farmaceutica.

Earlier this month, Lupin acquired ZAO Bio Biocom in Russia, again for an undisclosed amount. On Thursday, it announced acquisition of New Jersey based generic drugs firm Gavis for $880 Million. Gavis is the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian pharma company in US.

Lupin acquires US Generic firm Gavis

Mumbai based drug maker Lupin Ltd has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire New Jersey based privately held Gavis Pharmaceuticals Ltd and Novel Laboratories Inc. for $880 Million to expand in the US generic drug market. This is the biggest acquisition in the US by an Indian company. The acquisition is cash free and debt free.

Gavis brings to Lupin a highly skilled US based R&D organization, which would complement Lupin Coral Springs, Florida, inhalation R&D center and a New Jersey based manufacturing facility which will become Lupin first manufacturing site in the US. The acquisition enhances Lupin scale in the US generic market and also broadens its pipeline in dermatology, controlled substance products and other high valued and niche generics.

On 2^nd July, Lupin had acquired Russian company Biocom for an undisclosed amount. The company required sales of 861.2 Million Ruble in fiscal year 2014. In May 2015, Lupin entered into Brazilian pharmaceuticals market by acquiring Medquimica Industrial Pharmaceutical S.A Brazil for an undisclosed amount.

Lupin had strengthened its position in Latin American market last year by acquiring Laboratories Grin SA, the fourth largest pharmaceutical company in Mexico in the eye care segment, with sales of $28 Million in 2013. 

Mindtree Acquires Bluefin Solutions, Relational Solutions

Digital seems to be the flavor of the season. After similar moves by large peers, mid-sized Information Technology Company Mindtree has announced two acquisitions in the space, spending Rs 425 crore to shore up its digital business.

The company will acquire British Technology Consultancy Bluefin Solutions and US based analytics firm Relational Solutions. For Bluefin Solutions, Mindtree will pay Rs 423 crore. The UK headquartered company presently has a revenue run-rate of Rs 287 crore. The acquisition will help Mindtree gain about 50 clients in US and UK. Bluefin currently employs 170 consultants.

Relational Solutions is a provider of analytics for consumer packaged goods retail execution; Mindtree will pay Rs 63 crore in cash. The Ohio headquartered company had reported revenue of $3.2 Million in previous calendar. This buy will help Mindtree acquire analytics capabilities to offer insights on movement of goods such as beverages or chocolate for manufacturers. 

NewsHunt acquires BuyT

India’s local language mobile platform NewsHunt has acquired Rocket Science Innovations Private Limited, the parent company of the ecommerce recommendation platform BuyT ContentLink. BuyT will run as a standalone unit. It will continue its existing line of business enabling commerce for NewsHunt users.

Founded in 2012, ContentLink enables the information flow from a merchant/service provider to the consumer. The platform has integrated content with commerce by making product recommendation available at the point of consumer research on leading publisher platform. The platform parses real-time all major commerce sites in India for product updates and on the other end, analyzes context and user behavior on content pages and offers a rich ecommerce experience.

The New-Delhi based startup will be focusing on building the next generation platform for NewsHunt which plans to integrate shopping and commerce options for local language users on the NewsHunt platform. BuyT main focus is on mcommerce and they have also launched their app SDK.

NewsHunt claims to have over 20 Million monthly active users and over 2.5 Billion page views monthly. The company has created a vibrant marketplace for publishers with over 15 Million local language eBooks downloaded in the past 6 months. Almost two years, the company had launched iPayy, a micro transaction platform based on carrier billing. The platform has access to 700M subscribers across 5 major telcos in India and currently used by 700 digital goods merchants.

Facebook Oculus buys Pebbles Interfaces

Facebook owned virtual reality startup Oculus has confirmed that it is acquiring Pebbles Interfaces, a computer vision and depth sensing Technology Company based in Israel. Founded in 2010, Pebbles Interfaces develops advanced motion sensors that recreate physical objects within the digital realm, irrespective of the angle or range.

It also claims to have no latency, which would be a major boost for Oculus and its Virtual Reality headset. Pebbles Interfaces has built technology that uses custom optics, sensor systems and algorithms to monitor hand movement. Over time, technology breakthroughs in sensors will unlock new human interaction methods in VR and revolutionize the way people communicate in virtual worlds.

Following a $450,000 seed round raised in 2011, Pebbles Interfaces closed a chunky $11 Million round in 2013, which included big investors such as SanDisk. In a separate announcement, Pebbles Interfaces explains why it agreed to join Oculus, saying that it is at the forefront of the shift virtual reality has made in recent times, and it will help advance our vision of building immersive experiences and revolutionizing digital human interaction.

Facebook acquired Oculus for $2 Billion in March 2014. In June 2014, Oculus acquired Carbon Design Group, a Seattle based company that helped Microsoft design the Xbox 360 Controller, Kinect motion sensing camera. Two weeks later, Oculus acquired game networking engine RakNet and swiftly made it open source. Last year, Oculus acquired Nimble VR and 13^th Lab before going to snap up computer vision startup Surreal Vision in May.

Zee Entertainment acquire Sarthak TV

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd, a leading media and entertainment company, has acquired Odisha based Sarthak Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., the owners of ‘Sarthak TV’, a general entertainment channel at a consideration of Rs 115 crore. With this acquisition, Zee strengthens its regional offering with the objective of growing rapidly in Odisha. 

Sarthak TV airs highly a mix of reality and non-fiction shows besides fiction programming. The other regional channels from the ZEEL bouquet are Zee Marathi, Zee Talkies, Zee Bangla, Zee Bangla Cinema, Zee Telugu, Zee Kannada, and Zee Tamizh. Being the oldest and market leading network in India, ZEEL would provide the perfect platform for Sarthak to grow in future.

Mumbai based ZEE is one of the largest producers and aggregators of Hindi programme, with extensive library housing more than 120,000 hours of original television content. Moreover, with rights to more than 3,500 more titles, ZEE houses the world largest Hindi movie library. Through its strong presence worldwide, ZEE reaches over more than 959 Million viewers across 169 countries.

The firm had consolidated revenues of Rs 1,339.9 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2015, recording a growth of 23 percent compared with the same quarter last year. Its net profit jumped to Rs 242.3 crore, up 15 percent from Rs 210 crore at the same time in the corresponding year. 

Practo acquires Genii

Online doctor discovery platform Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd. has acquired Mumbai based product outsourcing firm Genii to strengthen its technology infrastructure. The acquisition comes amid Practo gearing up to enter the enterprise segment, with the launch of new products for hospitals and diagnostic centres.

Genii, founded in 2011 had raised $100,000 from angel investors. Practo will look for multiple acquisitions in the next 12 months to accelerate growth. It will look at acquisitions for innovative products and technology, talent and increasing customer base. At present, Practo generates revenue from Practo ray, a doctor facing practice management software sold as subscription based software as a service product.

The company does not charge doctors and patients for listing and booking appointments on its consumer facing platform Practo.com but hosts advertisements from hospitals and clinics on the website. Founded in 2008, Practo has so far raised $34 Million from Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and InnoVen Capital. Genii, is the second company acquired by Practo. In April, the company had acquired FitHo, a web and app-based fitness management platform, to enter the preventive healthcare segment.

Practo plans to expand to 10 countries across South East Asia, West Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe by the end of the year. The firm claims to have on board about 5000 doctors in Singapore and about 11,000 doctors in Philippines. Other prominent firms in this segment are Lybrate, Ziffi, Qikwell, and Helping Doc. Lybrate Inc. announced that the company has raised $10 Million from Tiger Global and Nexus Venture Partners.

Wipro to acquire Designit

In line with its strategy to equip itself tapping the opportunities in the digital space, Wipro, India’s third largest IT services company will acquire Designit, a Denmark based global strategic design firm for a consideration of around Euro 85 Million. The acquisition is expected to strengthen the capability of Wipro Digital, the digital business unit of the company which it set up in March this year.

Founded in 1991, Designit is considered one of the world’s largest privately held firms with an employee base of around 300 and design studios across nine cities globally. The company which reported revenues of Euro 27 Million provides strategic design, user experience and interaction design services to many global brands in segments such as Healthcare, banking, automotive and retail. Some of its global clientele includes companies such as Cisco, Harman, Brussels Airlines, Vodafone, Jabra, Danske Bank and Telefonica.

With the change in the technology buying behavior by global enterprises, the vendors who were offering traditional IT outsourcing services are seen aggressively looking at newer areas like social, mobility, big data and analytics and cloud wherein they are trying to position themselves as end-to-end digital partners. Strengthening the design capability holds key in these areas as it impacts the consumer experiences in a big way.

Wipro has been one of the most acquisitive IT services companies in India. The company has so far acquired around nine companies through the largest one so has been Infocrossing which it bought in August 2007 for about $600 Million. 

PayPal bought Money Transfer service Xoom

PayPal has made a few significant acquisitions since 2013, including purchasing Paydiant and Braintree. Now, PayPal said it would buy digital money transfer provider Xoom Corp. for $890 Million as it muscles into a growing international remittance market and expand in countries like Mexico, India and China ahead of a spinoff from eBay Inc.

Xoom, which has 1.3 Million customers and a presence in 37 countries, allow users to transfer money via desktop, mobile phones and tablets. The acquisition would allow Xoom to expand into new markets with less execution risk. Xoom will operate as a separate service within PayPal after the completion of the deal.

PayPal faces increasing competition from rivals like Stripe and Square, which is popular with smaller businesses and Apple Inc.’s Apple Pay. Online commerce foe Amazon Inc. is also beginning to explore in store payments. The company is slated to separate from eBay this month and list as an Independent company.

PayPal has been pushing hard into mobile, where customers are more frequently making everyday purchases. The company has touted its peer-to-peer money transferring division Venmo, used primarily by smartphone touting millennial, and earlier this year bought app developer Paydiant.

Marksans Pharma Buys Time-Cap Laboratories

Drug Maker Marksans Pharma had acquired US based Time-Cap Laboratories for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was done through its wholly owned subsidiary Marksans Pharma. With the move, the company is strategically increasing its presence in the US Market, the largest pharmaceutical market in the world.

Marksans is engaged in research and development, manufacturing and marketing of generic drugs. New York based Time-cap manufactures solid dosage generic drugs, including private label over the counter medications, prescriptions drugs and nutritional supplements. Its average annual revenue over the last four years is over $30 Million and it achieved an annual adjusted EBITDA of approx. $4 Million.

The company currently has no debt. The company manufactures over 50 unique products from its New York facility, including tablets, caplets, capsules, and pellets. Time-cap offers Marksans an ideal platform to expand its operation in the US. The strategic acquisition helps Marksans to expand its manufacturing capabilities along with product portfolio and penetration in the US. Shares of Marksans rose over 6% after the company reached an agreement with its bondholders.