Kamla has a report on Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd’s group company HFCL Infotel talking to, New Enterprise Associates, a valley based PE firm to buy 50% stake in the company at around Rs 350 crores [$78 Million]. All said and done about Triple Play in India, Kamla probably forgot to write about the colorful background Mahendra Nahata has. So you all wonder how the bust follows the boom ? NEA’s investment in HFCL Infotel is a possible example going by the track record of HFCL’s promoters, Mahendra Nahata.
Every 5 years, Mahendra Nahata finds some way to make money. In 1995, he had Mr Sukh Ram, then Telecom Minister of India in his confidence and HFCL was the highest bidder for most telecom licenses. Read about it here. Come 2000-01 Dot Com Boom, HFCL was the darling of speculators on Dalal Street. Then big bull, a scamster now, Ketan Parekh made most of his locked fortunes in HFCL. From 2001-2005, Nahata taught Australian media barrons, Keery and James Packer how to lose $275 Million 🙂
Come 2007, Nahata has played his cards again. I utter caution to the fund managers at NEA looking after this investment proposal. If NEA finds HFCL so appealing, then they should buy out Nahata instead of partnering with him.
Tags: Telecom India, Venture Capital, Private Equity, India
Good point Chetan about HFCL and Mr. Nahata. The focus of my post was the growth and opportunity for convergence and convergence devices in India…and why NEA might be interested in looking into this company. I am making an educated guess here about their interest. The focus of the post was not Mr. Nahata.. 🙂
Nice post.
Kamla
Kamla:
I normally don’t go after someone unless they are really bad and deserve such open bashing. Convergence is the way to go and is evident now from Apple’s iPhone 🙂