‘Sourcing’ may end for foreign single-brand retail; KKR, Baring PE Asia circle CitiusTech: Reports

In order to attract more foreign capital from firms such as Apple, the central government may do away with the local-sourcing norm for single-brand retail, finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg told The Economic Times.

India allows 100% foreign investment in single-brand retail under the automatic route but needs the investor to source 30% of the value of goods sold from within the country.

KKR, Baring PE Asia front runners for CitiusTech

Private equity major KKR and Baring Private Equity Asia have emerged as frontrunners for a controlling stake in Mumbai-based healthcare analytics company CitiusTech Inc., two persons in the know told The Times of India and The Economic Times.

If successful, the new investor will end up owning around 80% of the company, the persons added.

The deal is expected to value the company at $1 billion. CitiusTech was founded by technology entrepreneurs Rizwan Koita and Jagdish Moorjani along with their IIT batch-mate Bimal Naik in 2005.

Two other bidding groups are Goldman Sachs together with New Mountain, and homegrown ChrysCapital along with Canadian fund Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, the report said, adding that a final decision is expected later this week.

CitiusTech has earlier seen interest from GIC Pte. Ltd, Blackstone, Bain Capital, Apax Partners, CVC Capital Partners and ChrysCapital. In 2014, General Atlantic had picked up a stake in CitiusTech for an undisclosed amount.

New tax return forms

The central government will roll out by September new tax return forms for angel investors and startups that will eliminate any physical interface with tax authorities, The Economic Times reported.

“We would be modifying the return forms, which will allow the system to check if the investment made in the startup is genuinely made by someone capable of making that kind of investment,” a senior government official told The Economic Times.

Amit Maheshwari, partner, Ashok Maheshwary & Associates, told The Economic Times, “With increased data mining and intelligence-gathering capabilities, it would not be difficult to map the information gathered with other data available and verify the genuineness of the investment.”