Modi to spice up firm with $1b offering

SINGAPORE: Indian billionaire Bhupendra Kumar Modi, who has interests spanning telecommunications to financial services, said his holding company plans to raise about $1 billion in an initial public offering after scrapping a share sale in Dubai.

Singapore-based Spice Global aims to raise the money on another exchange in 2011, Modi, 60, said in an interview in the city-state. Spice Global dropped its planned $500 million Dubai IPO after the Dubai Financial Market General Index slumped 65 percent in the past year, compared with a 32 percent decline in the MSCI World Index.

The company has yet to decide on where it will hold the IPO, preferring an exchange that would allow shareholders to trade shares using mobile phones, said Modi, chairman of Spice Global, in the interview June 20 at his S$15.5 million ($10.6 million) penthouse that overlooks the construction of the Marina Bay Sands casino-resort in Singapore.