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n a significant exit attempt by a private equity firm in India in recent times, Bain Capital Partners LLC on Friday sold around 55 lakh shares of Hero MotoCorp on the open market. The shares were sold on both the BSE and the NSE.
On the BSE, it sold 24 lakh shares at ₹2,636.15 apiece. On the NSE, the sale price for Bain Capital was ₹2,636.76. Except for 10 lakh shares that were bought by Goldman Sachs Singapore Pte on the NSE, identities of other buyers were not disclosed by the exchanges. According to estimates, the deal fetched Bain around ₹1,500 crore.
From a level of ₹2,000 in January 2011, the stock jumped to a high of ₹2,775 recently and on Friday closed at ₹2,588.85 on the BSE.
The buyer of Hero MotoCorp shares would be entitled to the recommended dividend of ₹65 a share for the financial year 2013-14.
In an emailed reply to a Business Line query on the deals, an official of the global PE firm said: “On behalf of Bain Capital, I would like to clarify that we have no comments to offer.”
$75 b AMC Bain Capital has over $75 billion in assets under management.
Three years ago, the PE firm, together with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, had funded the Munjal family to buy out Honda Motor’s stake in their joint venture of over two decades. The Munjals acquired the 26 per cent stake held by Honda Motor through their private holding arm Hero Investments Pvt Ltd. They then sold a minority stake in Bain Capital and GIC to retire the debt.
On Thursday, BMOP (Brij Mohan Lall Om Prakash), the investment arm of the Brij Mohan Lal-led Hero Group, said in a statement: “Bain Capital has been an investor in Hero MotoCorp for over three and a half years now. Typically, financial investors such as Bain Capital have a three-five year investment horizon and Bain has decided to partially monetise their investment now.”
Hero Investments was later merged with Hero MotoCorp, which allowed Bain to acquire 8.58 per cent stake in the merged entity in September 2013. Lathe Investment Pte Ltd, an arm of Singapore wealth fund GIC, holds 3.71 per cent stake in Hero MotoCorp. This too, is a legacy of Hero Investment’s Honda stake buyout. Promoters currently hold around 40 per cent.
For the quarter ended March, the company reported a sales of ₹6,512.96 crore and net profit of ₹554.43 crore.
For the fiscal ended March, it reported a net profit of ₹2,109.08 crore on total sales of ₹25,275 crore.
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