One of hot talks among firms on recurring mid-tier buyout in SEA. -Religare, which has already formed a joint venture in Turkey and acquired a presence in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Hong Kong, London and New York, is looking to buy investment banking or broking operations in Brazil, the Philippines, Indonesia and South Africa.
-Religare could not disclose the size of the intended acquisitions but said the group plans to invest a total of $400m within the next 12-18 months. The buyout or strategic partnership plan has recently been voiced out publicly toward the end of 2010. (Religare eyes emerging markets deals: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20d08f16-efd9-11df-88db-00144feab49a.html) Religare Cap zeroes in mid-tier investment banks, brokerages in Indonesia (Buyout Wire, Jun 2011) Religare Capital Markets Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Religare Enterprises, is looking to acquire investment banks or brokerage houses in Indonesia. In some of the markets, Religare has joint ventures, Consultants and advisors. Religare would explore opportunities - buyouts either as majority equity ownership or a serious minority equity ownership as source to the potential deal disclosed. It was added that in some of the countries where Religare must need presence is Indonesia among other. We are making a serious point of looking at acquisition.The company would look at medium-sized companies, which it can scale upwards. It was said that the way to enter Indonesia market is not to set up greenfield operations as it is different territory, but to tie up with mid-tier brokerage or investment banks and start relationships. That relationship can start from minority partnership or whole buyouts. The source closed to the anticipated deal declined to comment further when the targeted mid-tier brokerage in Indonesia was suspected as being PT Panin Sekuritas Tbk. which has already been listed in Indonesia stock exchange. However, the source confirmed that the effort being made was underway.
