The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), headed by Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das has cleared 3 Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) proposals amounting Rs 160 crore which includes ScaleneWorks People Solutions LLP, GVK Biosciences and Singapore based GMS Pharma. Of the 24 proposals which were on the agenda of the FIPB, 11 worth Rs 300 crore fell under the automatic route due to the new policy announced earlier this month. So, in effect, the FIPB discussed the remaining and cleared three.
Approval has been sought by GVK Biosciences for transfer of its 9.091% shares currently held by Sequoia Capital to Destiny Investments for an aggregate consideration of 145.4 crores. Besides, approval has been sought by GMS Pharma (Singapore) for the proposed acquisition of 25.1% of the share capital of Stelis Biopharma either by itself or through its affiliates and or group companies, in one or more tranches which is currently held by Strides Arcolab.
However, 9 FDI proposals including HDFC Standard Life insurance Company, Tata Sikorsky Aerospace, Jupiter Satellite lndia, Financial Times (lndia), Volvo Asset Finance lndia, Aviva Life lnsurance Co lndia, lndus Way Emerging Market Fund Series ll, Ivy Cap Ventures Trust Fund ll and Firefly Networks were deferred. Meanwhile, FIPB rejected ACN Cable proposal which has been sought for increasing the equity stake from 47.56% to 73.16% by way of downstream investment by Atria Convergence Technologies (foreign owned) in ACN Cable, an MSO. Besides, 8 FDI proposals did not lie before FIPB and three proposals were withdrawn by the applicants.