[The following guest post is contributed by Ananya Banerjee, a 5th Year Student of University of Calcutta, Department of Law] Investing in companies (especially in startups) involves a huge risk. For this reason, financial investors look for exit rights which allow them to exit the company with a high return on the investment amount. While the aim of the strategic investors is not to...
SEBI: Report on Alternative Investment Funds
Yesterday, the Alternative Investment Policy Advisory Committee appointed by SEBI under the chairmanship of Mr. Narayana Murtyh issued its first report. The Committee has suggested a number of reforms on different fronts, including creating a favourable tax environment for investors, unlocking domestic sources of venture capital and private equity, enabling and encouraging onshore fund management...
Paper on Private Equity in India
In the past, some readers have asked if we could cover matters pertaining to the private equity sector in greater detail. Often, the difficulty we encounter is that private equity is not recognised specifically as an investment class under the Indian laws and regulations. As far as foreign private equity investments are concerned, they are generally treated as part of the foreign direct...
Arbitration of Shareholder Disputes
In an article in the Financial Express, my colleague Debashish Sankhari and I have looked at whether disputes of oppression and mismanagement in relation to the affairs of a company can be adjudicated through arbitration. This is an important practical question for many a financial investor (and even a long-term strategic investor) who has agreed to arbitration clauses in the investment/...
SEBI Notifies Regulations on Alternative Investment Funds
Last year, SEBI had issued a concept paper on comprehensive regulation for alternative investment funds (AIFs). The proposal to set up a separate framework was approved by SEBI at its board meeting held last month. This proposal has now been operationalised by the promulgation of the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, which were notified yesterday. These new regulations are...
Trends in Private Equity Investment Structures
1. A report in the Mint demonstrates the popularity of convertible instruments over plain-vanilla equity when it comes to investments by private equity firms. 2. A post on New York Times’ Deal Professor Blog discusses trends in contractual structures for private equity investments from a broader perspective in the wake of the financial crisis. Most of those structures, however, are in the context...
Liquidation Preference: How Effective is it?
In a column in the Economic Times, Amrita Singh and Siddharth Shah discuss the relevance of the concept of liquidation preference in Indian investment transactions: “The progressive liberalisation of the foreign investment regime has provided a major boost to private equity and venture capital investments in Indian companies. With the advent of more sophisticated players in the private equity and...
Legal Hurdles to Private Equity Investment
Although the flow of foreign private equity into India has been quite steady, there continue to be several ambiguities in the legal regime relating to private equity investment. Through interviews with experts, CNBC -TV18 identifies some of the issues. These include the following: 1. Governance rights: When private equity investors acquire rights in listed companies (such as veto rights on key...
Success of Venture Capital Investments in India
One of our readers, Aravind Balajee, brings to our attention this story from VC Circle. It relates to a tremendously successful exit by a venture capital investor, UTI Ventures, from an Indian portfolio company, Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The details are here: “There is a thing or two to learn from this exit deal of UTI Ventures. One is that the Indian software product companies are not all...
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