Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Smartest buyback

Here. ICICI Venture biting another bitter pill. It invested $22.5 million for a 43% stake in Dr.Reddy’s Labs (DRL) research outfit Perlecan Pharma in November 2005 and is getting back $9 million for divesting it back to DRL. Joining it in drinking that Karma Kool-Aid is Citi Venture that is in a brual *sell-all* mode giving in to CEO Vikram Pandit's earnest efforts aimed at resuscitating Citigroup by selling all things that it can find a buyer for.

I think of Dr.Anji Reddy. He must be allowing himself a rare chuckle (*rare* because the $754 million Betapharm acquisition is bleeding now). He had invested $7.5 million in Perlecan for a 14% stake. Now he has 100% stake for just $25.5 m – ain't that smart?
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