TVS Shriram Growth Fund to acquire 25-per cent stake in Landmark

Chennai-based PE fund TVS Shriram Growth Fund plans to acquire a 25 per cent stake in book and music retail chain Landmark, a closely-held subsidiary of Tata's Trent for Rs65 crore in a deal that values Landmark at Rs260 crore.

Trent, Tata's listed retail business arm that also operates Westside and Star Bazaar chains had first acquired a 76-per cent stake in Landmark in 2005 for Rs103.6 crore before buying out the outstanding 24 per of promoter Hemu Ramaiah's share last year for an undisclosed amount.

Ramaiah and her husband Jai Subramaniam are advisors to the TVS Capital Funds, which manages the growth fund.

Gopal Srinivasan, TVS Capital CMD will join the Landmark board. TVS Shriram is a Rs 600-crore fund of the TVS and Shriram groups.

The fund is also said to be in the process of acquiring a 25-40 per cent stake in Bangalore-based facility management firm Dusters Hospitality Services for Rs25-30 crore. Once it is through with the two deals TVS would have invested around a quarter of its Rs600 core corpus.

According to Trent's communication with stock exchanges on Wednesday it has entered into an agreement for the sale of 14,03,903 equity shares of Rs10 each in Landmark to TVS Shriram growth fund for a consideration of around Rs50 crore with another 15 crore to be receive by way of the funding taking 4,21,171 equity shares of Rs10 each in Landmark.