Kotak To Raise $1 Billion Infrastructure Fund

MUMBAI: Alternate assets player Kotak Investment Advisors, a subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Bank, is set to launch an infrastructure fund.

C Jayaram, executive director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, said the fund will invest in core infrastructure verticals such as roads, ports, airports and power.

The move will mark Kotak?s entry into a third alternate asset. It currently manages two private equity funds that split $225 million between them and 3 real estate funds with total assets under management of $700 million.

?It doesn?t make sense to have an infrastructure fund that is anything less than $1 billion,? said Jayaram, hinting at the magnitude of the fund. Going by this, Kotak will have around $2 billion under management in alternate assets once the infrastructure fund is launched. read more

Economic Prognosis

As the Economics Ministry noted, it was already clear at the beginning of October that price conditions were worse than the year before. ?Between January and September 2007, inflation on the consumer market totaled 7.5 percent, as opposed to 7.2 percent a year ago,? the ministry wrote. ?The last six months have been characterized by noticeable (double digit) hastening of inflation compared to the previous year. In the second quarter, price growth reached 2.2 percent, against 1.1 percent a year ago. In the third quarter, it was 1.8 percent, against 1.1 percent.?

Inflation in Russia decreased every year, at least a little, before this year, while remaining monstrously high by the standards of both industrialized and developing countries, but this year it is increasing. It already seems strange to talk about the lower inflationary expectations of the public. read more

Iona May Be Targeted In Takeover Bid

A strong surge in the share price of software group Iona Technologies has prompted speculation that the company is about to be the subject of a takeover approach.

Shares in Iona have risen by 50 per cent in the last seven trading days. During the same period, the Iseq index of Irish shares was virtually unchanged.

Sources in London said there was strong speculation that an interested party was running the rule over the company, and that it may even have initiated informal preliminary contact with Iona.

Last week, Goldman Sachs reduced its stake in the company by 4.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent. It is not clear who bought that stake. read more