From Altassets

International Data Group and Accel Partners have launched a new venture capital fund for China. The IDG-Accel China Growth Fund will focus on IT, healthcare, consumer technologies, and other emerging technologies. Its anchor investors are IDG and Accel but the fund will also gather capital from institutional investors.

IDG Technology Venture Investment (IDGVC), the general partnership which has been managing IDG’s venture capital funds in China since 1992, will manage the new fund.

IDG founder and chairman Patrick McGovern said, ‘It’s a perfect time for IDG to scale up its investment activities in China as we have been seeing an increasing number of larger investment opportunities.’

‘I have known Jim Breyer and Accel Partners for many years and I’m delighted that Accel Partners is joining us to invest together in these opportunities in China,’ McGovern continued.

Jim Breyer, managing partner of Accel Partners, added, ‘We are very excited about this new partnership as IDGVC is considered one of the best venture capital investment teams in China and has delivered superior returns to its investors.’

IDGVC was founded by IDG, a provider of information technology services, and originally named Pacific Technology Venture Fund-China. IDGVC’s venture capital operation is headquartered in Beijing, with branch offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in China, and in Boston and San Jose in the United States

Accel Partners has offices in Palo Alto, California and London.

Best Practices, LLC, offers a definitive guide in successful M&A planning and integration.

Download a Complimentary Research Sample on Structuring the Deal to Optimize Integration Effectiveness, go to http://www3.best-in-class.com/de148.htm 

Specifically, this research will allow you to learn how:

· Intel and others in high tech do “green acquisitions” retaining and blending in the corporate culture of the acquired company.
· To create target future economic profiles to guide deal structuring, integration planning and resource allocation.
· To increase employee retention rates and keep the intellectual base of the acquired company intact through a “merger of equal” attitude with more compromises in decision-making.

This bundle or collection of ten research documents probes several areas that are critical for the integration success of mergers or acquisitions. This bundle includes one 29-page document which, coupled with the other documents, will help merger and acquisition teams:

• Evaluate the scope of service offerings against other organizations
• Assess activity volume, cost and speed
• Understand which approaches teams employ to measure the value of M&A/Integration/Divestiture services, and which approaches are the most effective to communicate the value of services within the company
• Understand how others assess customer satisfaction and compare customer satisfaction rates against others

Valuable elements have been culled from three separate research initiatives, including Database documents 4393, 4710, 2876, 2883, 2884, 2933, 2924, 2937, 2897 and 2901. Topics covered include:
· Guiding deal structuring and using performance metrics
· Success factors for managing change
· Making layoff decisions and integrating personnel
· Combining technology infrastructures
· Creating plans of action and employing integration roadmaps

Based on surveys and interviews conducted by Best Practices, LLC researchers with leading companies such as DuPont, Cisco, EDS, John Deere, Motorola, Coca-Cola, Intel, and many more, this bundle is a great shortcut to understand the key components to creating a successful integrated company.

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Gartner Financial Services Technology Summit will tackle the complex IT issues and lay out the manageable actions needed for success.

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IT executives and their business counterparts in the Banking, Investments and Insurance industries.

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Private equity pours into India as firms driven by the need for greater profits look further afield and Warburg Pincus performance focuses them onto India.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938158_mz035.htm
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When private equity fund Warburg Pincus LLC announced on Mar. 14 that it had sold the latest chunk of its stake in India’s top cellular player, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., it was the biggest sensation this year for India’s markets. Not only was the $560 million sum huge — the largest stock trade in India’s history — but the deal was completed seamlessly in just 26 minutes. “No one realized the Indian market had so much depth or maturity,” says Manisha Girotra, chairman and managing director of UBS India (UBS ), which executed the trade for Warburg. “Or that there was such an appetite for India.”

Warburg Pincus has now made $1.1 billion by selling off two-thirds of its 18% share in Bharti — not a bad payoff on a $300 million investment made in stages between 1999 and 2001. “It was one of the very best deals in the firm’s history,” says Dalip Pathak, a London partner at Warburg Pincus in charge of Europe and India and the man who led the Bharti investment. “We were willing to take certain risks when we backed the management, and the [risks] paid off.”

Warburg’s painless and profitable exit sent an important signal to the private equity community: India is finally open for business. Private equity investors from around the world are increasing their bets on Indian corporates or making new ones. That includes big-name U.S. firms like Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group and General Atlantic Partners, and Britain’s Actis Partners. Local firms such as ICICI Venture Funds Management Ltd. and Kotak are also stepping up investments. In 2004 these firms poured an estimated $1.3 billion into private equity deals in equity in India, according to Asian Venture Capital Journal.

New foreign buyout firms are arriving monthly, snapping up experienced local staff and setting up shop in Bombay, Bangalore, and New Delhi at a rapid pace — often hitting the ground running by operating from five-star hotel rooms until they find suitable office space. So far this year there have been 32 deals worth $420 million. And the year has already seen $1.2 billion in divestments, or exits, as they are known in the private equity business. Last year’s largest investment came when Greenwich (Conn.)-based General Atlantic and New York’s Oak Hill Capital bought 60% of New Delhi outsourcing company GE Capital International Services (GECIS) from General Electric Co. (GE ) for $500 million.

While the traditional route for private equity firms is to buy a controlling stake in struggling, mature corporations and then try to turn them around, in an emerging economy such as India these firms act more like venture capitalists. They look for promising companies in industries ranging from tech to textiles and seek to give them a boost, doing everything from injecting more capital for expansion to holding the hand of management and providing strategic guidance. “Developing countries like India offer [private equity] opportunities that developed countries don’t,” says Ash Lilani, head of global markets for Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, Calif., which funds the private equity and venture industry. “With the right capital and professional management, private equity players in India can invest early, expand companies, and make an impact on entire industry segments.”

Of course, there is also a great deal of money to be made. That’s why Blackstone Group recently elevated India to one of its key strategic hubs in Asia. Earlier this year, Blackstone hired several consulting firms, including McKinsey & Co., and looked at investing in various emerging markets. It chose India as the place to set up its next in-country office and intends to invest $1 billion in local companies, says Akhil Gupta, head of Blackstone in India.

India’s chief advantage over countries such as China is that it offers investors better trained managers and more corporate transparency in the private sector. It also boasts the oldest stock market in Asia — the 130-year-old Bombay Stock Exchange — and the largest number of listed stocks, over 7,000. Most important, the courts are a fairly reliable arbiter of investors’ rights. “India is more sophisticated than other Asian markets because of its more developed jurisprudence and relative sanctity of contracts,” says Donald Peck, a managing partner in charge of the India office for Britain’s Actis, which has successfully enforced a disputed contract.

From Bizjournal

The top-dollar merger and acquisition deals involving Houston-based companies during the first half of 2005 are reported by Los Angeles-based Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin and Connecticut-based FactSet Mergerstat LLC.

Mergerstat tracks publicly announced M&A activity involving U.S. business entities with deals of $1 million or more and 10 percent ownership or more sought.

The largest transactions for which the deal size is reported are:

• Weatherford International Ltd.’s purchase of Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based Precision Drilling Corp.’s energy services division, Precision Drilling Co., for over $2.1 billion.
• ConocoPhillips Co./EPCO Inc.’s purchase of Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy Corp.’s Texas Eastern Products Pipeline Co. LLC for $1.1 billion.
• Complete Energy Holdings LLC’s purchase of California-based La Paloma Generating Co. LLC for $610 million.
• Copano Energy LLC’s purchase of Tulsa, Fla.-based ScissorTail Energy LLC for $500 million.
• SEACOR Holdings Inc.’s purchase of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Seabulk International Inc.
• Sale of Pogo Producing Co.’s Thaipo Ltd. unit to Bangkok, Thailand-based PTT Exploration & Production Public Co. Ltd. for $490 million.
• Sale of Metals USA Inc. to New York-based Apollo Advisors LP for $446 million.
• Sale of El Paso Corp./Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum’s Enterprise Products GP LLC unit to Prosser, Wash.-based EPCO Inc. for 425 million.
• Petrohawk Energy Corp.’s purchase of Mission Resources Corp. for $375 million. Both companies are based in Houston.
• Sale of El Paso Corp.’s Korea Independent Energy Corp. unit to Korea local administration officials’ mutual fund for $276 million.
• Kinder Morgan Energy Partners’ purchase of seven bulk terminal operations of Trans-Global Solutions Inc. for $230 million. Both companies are based in Houston.
• Halliburton Co.’s sale of its Subsea 7 Ltd. unit to Kristiansand, Norway-based Siem Offshore Inc. for $200 million.
• Sale of TransTexas Gas Corp. to Mount Kisco, N.Y.-based American Real Estate Partners LP for $180 million.
• Sale of Tubos Del Caribe SA/Consorcio Metalurgico Nacion to Chesterfield, Mo.-based Maverick Tube Corp. for $156 million.
• Sale of Sugar Land-based Imperial Sugar Corp. to Purchase, N.Y.-based Schultze Asset Management LLC for $153.5 million.
• Sale of MetroNational Corp.’s six independent living complexes to Orlando, Fla.-based CNL Financial Group Inc. for $148 million.
• Landry’s Restaurants Inc.’s purchase of Las Vegas-based Poster Financial Group Inc.’s Golden Nugget Las Vegas for $140 million.
• Cal Dive International Inc.’s purchase of Luxembourg-based Stolt Offshore SA’s Mexican diving and shallow-water pipelaying operations for $125 million.
• Sale of Panaco Inc. to Mount Kisco, N.Y.-based American Real Estate Partners LP for $125 million.
• Cooper Cameron Corp.’s purchase of NuFlo Technologies Inc. for $120 million. Both companies are based in Houston.
• Sale of Horizon Capital Bank to San Antonio-based Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. for $107 million.
• Oil States International Inc.’s purchase of Allen-based Stinger Wellhead Protection Inc. for $83 million.
• Cardtronics Inc.’s purchase of Boston-based TA Associates Inc. for $75 million.
• Sale of Gexa Corp. to Juno Beach, Fla.-based FPL Group Inc. for $69 million.
• Sale of seven midmarket hotel businesses of Westmont Hospitality Group to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada-based InnVest Real Estate Investment Trust for $68 million.
• Sale of North Cypress Medical Center to Birmingham, Ala.-based Medical Properties Trust Inc. for $64 million.
• Sale of El Paso Corp.’s Coastal Petrochemical LP unit to Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based Petro-Canada for $60 million.
• Whittier Energy Corp.’s purchase of Dallas-based RIMCO Production Co. Inc. for $55 million.
• BMC Software Inc.’s purchase of Boulogne Billancourt, France-based Calendra SA for $43 million.
• Sale of Enterprise Products Partners LP’s Starfish Pipeline Co. LLC unit to Englewood, Colo.-based Markwest Energy Partners LP for $42 million.

Figures provided reflect only the base equity price of the transactions and not the liabilities and exclude the exchange of business assets, private placements, spin-offs and open-market transactions.

$20 Million Equity Funding From Sequoia Capital
$40 Million Credit Line From Wells Fargo Business Credit

LAS VEGAS, NV — October 28, 2004 — Zappos.com, Inc. announced today the closing of a $20 million round of equity funding from Sequoia Capital. Zappos.com also announced an increase of their revolving line of credit with Wells Fargo Business Credit to $40 million. The funds will be used to support the company’s rapid sales growth and to improve the customer experience. Zappos.com is expecting to surpass $175 million in gross merchandise sales this year.

http://www.zappos.com/about.zhtml