PE investments jump three fold in H1' 10

PRLog (Press Release) - Jul 13, 2010 -
Private Equity firms invested about US$2,364 million across 67 deals during the quarter ended June 2010, according to a study by Venture Intelligence (http://www.ventureintelligence.in), a research service focused on Private Equity and M&A transaction activity in India. The latest numbers take the total PE investments in 2010 to $4,571 million (across 138 deals) more than three times the $1,508 million invested (across 111 deals) during the same period in 2009. (Note: These numbers do not include PE investments in Real Estate.)

The amount invested in Q2, '10 was 2.6 times that during the same period last year (which witnessed $890 million being invested across 51 deals) and also higher compared to the immediate previous quarter ($2,207million across 71 deals). With this, the amount invested by PE firms in India has climbed for the fifth successive quarter.

The largest investment during Q2 '10 was Olympus Capital's $300 million investment into Tata Power's SPVs for Indonesian coal mines. Other top investments reported during Q2 '10 included TPG Capital's $217 million investment into Shriram Capital followed by Temasek's $200 million and $175 million investments into GMR Energy and National Stock Exchange respectively.

"Q2'10 saw the sustaining of the appetite for larger ticket deals that emerged in the previous quarter," remarked Mr. Arun Natarajan, MD & CEO of Venture Intelligence. "For the first time since Q3, '08, the latest quarter witnessed as many as seven investments over $100 million," he pointed out.

The IT & ITES industry registered 11 deals worth $99 million during Q2 '10, followed by BSFI (9 deals worth $508 million) and Healthcare & Life Sciences (8 deals worth $195 million). Venture Capital and Late Stage investments accounted for 22 deals each during Q2 '10. Late Stage deals accounted for 43% of the investments in value terms.

Private Equity firms obtained exit routes for their investments in 27 Indian companies during Q2 '10, including two via IPOs (that of Persistent Systems and Shree Ganesh Jewellery). This compares to 13 exits (including 1 IPO) in the same period in 2009 and 36 exits (including 7 IPOs) in the immediate previous quarter. PE firms exited 25 companies via the M&A route during the quarter Apr-Jun 2010. The largest deals included SAIF and Peepul Capital's exit from Intelligroup (via strategic sale to NTT Data), WL Ross' sale of its stake in SpiceJet for to Kalanithi Maran, ICICI Venture's secondary sale of it's stake in Metropolis Healthcare to Warburg Pincus and Sequoia Capital India's public market sale of its shares in Manappuram General Finance & Leasing.