Substantiating the December 2008 reports that some top-rung executives of ICICI Bank may quit after Chanda Kochhar's appointment as the new CEO and MD, two business chiefs - Renuka Ramnath ICICI Ventures' Managing Director and CEO; and Shikha Sharma, Managing Director of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance - are likely to put in their papers, sooner than later.

The liquidity position of the cash-strapped realtor United Ltd is expected to improve, with the company recently raising Rs 1,625 crore at Rs 38.50 per share through qualified institutional placement (QIP) issue. The proceeds from this sale of new shares to qualified institutions will help the country's second-biggest real estate developer repay a part of its more than Rs 8,900-crore debt.

Despite the fact that the global downturn has virtually hit every sector of the economy, the education sector has largely escaped any major blows; and is beckoning private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) funds!

According to a “Private Equity Pulse – Education” report by Venture Intelligence - a research service tracking private equity and M & A activity in India – the PE, VC investors are targeting the domestic education firms, after they have noticed a huge potential in the education arena.

Notwithstanding the massive plunge in the 2009 first quarter private equity (PE) activities in China by 50 percent and in India by 87 percent, the two countries managed to sweep-clean a majority – more than 70 percent - of the PE deals in the Asia-Pacific region!

During the first quarter of 2009, from January to March, private equity firms struck 36 deals amounting to an investment of nearly $526 million. These figures mark a considerable drop from the same-quarter year-before figures of 133 deals totaling $3.9 billion in investment.

Religare Enterprises Limited (REL), a diversified financial services group of India, has notified that its venture capital arm has entered into a 50:50 JV with private equity firm Milestone Capital, for managing a Rs 600-crore healthcare and education fund 'India Build-Out Fund I'.

Under the tie-up, Religare along with its affiliates has committed to contribute Rs 60 crore in a new investment management company, which has an existing corpus of more than Rs 100 Crores.

In a latest development, Hyderabad-based drug developer Suven Life Sciences has informed that its molecule for Alzheimer's disease will soon enter phase two trials.

According to sources, the phase two trials will cost the company $20 million. The company is presently in the process of raising funds for the trials through a combination of debt, equity and strategic partner.

Last week, the company announced that more than half-a-dozen companies have shown interest in partnering the company for developing 'SUVN 502' molecule.