May 20, 2020
Asahi sells stake in Tsingtao brewery to Fosun for $847mn
2 min
Asahi, Tokyo-based leading brewery and soft drink company, has sold its stake in Tsingtao brewery for a total value of $941mn.
It will sell 18% to Fosun for $847mn. Fosun is a Chinese international conglomerate and investment company. It was founded in Shanghai in 2004 and incorporated on HKSE in 2004.
Tsingtao was founded in 1903 and is China’s second-largest brewery. It has about a 15% share of the domestic market, and is based in Qingdao.
Asahi had a total 20% stake in Tsingtao, so the remaining 2% will go back to the brewer for about $94mn. Asahi had purchased this stake in 2009 from AB InBev for $667mn.
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The shares will be sold at HK$27.22 (US$3.48) apiece, which is a 32% discount on the closing value of HK$40 ($3.48) per share.
This is part of Fosun’s new investment portfolio strategy which centres around “wealth, health, happiness” industries. This takes advantage of the increasing goods and services market for China’s growing affluent middle class.
The deal wil be the biggest F&B investment so far for Fosun, which also recently led a consortium to buy French margarine maker St Hubert, as well as purchasing Israeli skincare brand Ahava and Greek fashion brand Folli Follie.
The deal is to close in early March.
Jun 8, 2021
Timeline: India takes unicorn leap with six in five days
2 min
We chart an historic week in India’s startup tech industry, where from April 5-9 the country achieved six unicorns
We chart an historic week in India’s tech industry, where in just five days, between 5-9 April 2021, the country achieved six new unicorns, bringing India’s total to 10 in 2021 to date, an immense unicorn leap from just seven in 2020 and six in 2019.
April 5: Meesho
India’s first social commerce unicorn, Meesho raised US$300m from SoftBank, Facebook and Shunwei Capital, giving the Bangalore-based startup a US$2.1bn valuation, a threefold jump from its previous funding round in 2019. Founded in 2015 by two IIT-Delhi graduates, Meesho connects producers and resellers, helping small businesses sell through social media. It has 45m customers and has enabled 13m entrepreneurs to start their online businesses with no investment.
April 6: CRED
Founded just over two years ago, Bangalore-based credit card repayment app CRED raised US$215m from Falcon Edge Capital and Coatue, nearly trebling its valuation to US$2.2bn from its January US$80m round. Allowing customers to pay off their credit card debt while earning CRED coins which they cash in for rewards, CRED has grown rapidly during COVID-19, doubling its customer base to nearly 6 million in a year.
April 7: API Holdings / Groww
The first epharmacy startup to gain unicorn status, PharmEasy (API Holdings), which has digitised 60,000 brick and mortar pharmacies and 400 doctors across India, raised US$350m in a round led by Prosus Ventures. Founded by four former Flipkart employees as a way of making investing simple, investment platform Groww became India’s second-youngest fintech unicorn, raising US$83m in Series D funding led by Tiger Global, quadrupling its previous round in September.
April 8: ShareChat
New Delhi-grown social media startup ShareChat, founded in 2016 by Mohalla Tech raised US$502m from Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global, Twitter and Snap taking its raised total over six rounds to US$766m and pushing its valuation to US$2.1bn. The funding will be used to grow its user base and short video platform Moj, which launched in 2020 following TikTok’s ban in India. The regional language startup claims 280m users.
April 9: Gupshup
AI-led conversational message startup joined the unicorn club after raising US$100m from Tiger Global giving it a ten-fold valuation of US$1.4bn. The smart messaging platform, which has seen accelerated growth during the pandemic, was founded in Bangalore in 2005 by serial entrepreneur Beerud Sheth, whose online freelancing platform Elance is now listed. Gupshup’s API enables 100,000+ businesses to build messaging and conversation experiences across 30+ communication channels.
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