The National Stock Exchange (NSE) will be picking up 100 percent stake in news wire and financial data services provider Cogencis Information Services for ₹140 crore.

Cogencis, earlier known as Newswire18, was sold to private equity firm Samara Capital in 2013 by Network18, then controlled by Raghav Bahal. Then, the 77 per cent stake deal was valued around ₹90 crore. The NSE received the SEBI’s approval for the Cogencis deal on October 15 and its acquisition will be completed in four tranches, according to documents seen by BusinessLine.

When contacted, Pankaj Aher, Founder and CEO, Cogencis , declined to comment. NSE did not respond to an email query sent by BusinessLine . Though there is no official word on the rationale for the acquisition, analysts said that NSE may use Cogencis services to provide information and data to its clients.

The documents with BusinessLine also show that NSE has acquired a controlling stake in Talentsprint Private Limited, an e-learning company for a total consideration of around ₹ 260 crore, for which SEBI approval has been received by the exchange, the documents said. Both the deals will be done through NSE’s subsidiary companies involving NSE Data and Analytics and NSE Academy.

Talentsprint is owned by Santanu Paul, son-in-law of C Rangarajan, who headed the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister.

Also, the NSE IT, another subsidiary of NSE, has consolidated its holding in Aujas Networks, a cyber security firm, during the September quarter. NSE IT now holds 99.29 per cent stake in Aujas compared to 97.67 percent in June and 96.84 pe rcent in March quarter. During the September quarter, NSE IT acquired 79,92,700 equity shares of Aujas for ₹5.70 crore.

 

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