Tulip Tele Looks To Raise $75M From PE Firms

Tulip Telecom is in advanced talks with private equity firms to raise up to $75 million in the current fiscal year, its head said on Monday.

Tulip, a corporate data services provider, has been looking to raise money to fund expansion plans. In May this year, its board approved plans to raise Rs 10 billion.

"We are looking to raise equity in our data centre. So we will be looking at raising some equity there. We are in talks with (a) few players and we expect to close it fairly quickly," said Chairman and Managing Director H.S. Bedi.

"It could be up to $75 million. (There is) interest from... global players as well as local players," he said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum event in Mumbai.

Earlier this year, Tulip roped in IBM, the world's largest technology services firm, to partner its Bangalore-based data centre, aimed at boosting its offerings and enabling it to provide cloud computing and managed services applications.

It expects to generate revenue of about Rs 10 billion from the data centre, it has said earlier.

"We are on track to achieving 20 per cent year-on-year growth. We have been doing it for the last 5 years and demand has been strong," Bedi said.

Earlier this month, Tulip reported a 12 per cent rise in consolidated quarterly profit, while net sales grew 20 per cent.

"Actually, pricing pressure has eased off. Earlier pricing used to be more competitive. Big players have always been there, it was the new telcos who came and messed it up," Bedi said.

At 12:05 p.m., shares in Tulip Telecom were trading 1.9 per cent higher at Rs 148.95 in a Mumbai market up 0.8 per cent.