Genpact deal props up Quarterly PE investment; First 9 month investments dip 27%

Oct. 9, 2012 - PRLog -- Private Equity firms invested about $2,521 million across 97 deals during the quarter ended September 2012, 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. Thanks to the $1 billion investment by Bain Capital in US listed, Gurgaon based BPO firm Genpact, the investment amount showed a growth of 4.4% over that invested in the same period last year ($2,415 million across 120 transactions) and a healthy 32% over the immediate previous quarter (which had witnessed $1,909 million being invested across 105 transactions). Despite the quarterly up tick, the total PE investments in the first nine months of 2012 at $6,488 million across 309 transactions, significantly trails the $8,882 million across 357 transactions in the same period in 2011. (Please Note: The above figures do not include PE investments in Real Estate.)

Bain Capital Partners’ purchase of shares held by previous PE investors - General Atlantic and Oak Hill Capital - in NYSE-listed, Gurgoan-based BPO firm Genpact for approximately $1 billion was the largest PE investment during Q3’12 by a huge margin, with no other investment crossing the $200 million figure. The second largest investment during the period was SBI-Macquarie’s $150 million investment in Ashoka Concessions Limited, a road-construction subsidiary of publicly-listed Ashoka Buildcon.

Led by the Genpact deal, IT & ITES companies attracted $1,295 million (51% of the value pie) across 45 reported investments during Q3’12. In other IT & ITES transactions, Blackstone acquired a 6.1% stake in publicly listed Financial Technologies India through open market transactions; Actis invested $40 million in ATM outsourcing and payments company AGS Transact Technologies and Carlyle picked up shares worth $39 million in publicly listed Infotech Enterprises.

Venture Capital type deals accounted for 54% of the investments (in volume terms) during Q3’12 compared to 42% in the corresponding period a year ago. The share of Late Stage deals was 21%, while the share of listed company investments was 13% during the latest quarter.

Real Estate

Private Equity-Real Estate firms made 10 investments (amounting to US$394 million across nine deals with disclosed values) during the quarter ended September 2012. The volume of investments was down by 44% compared to the 18 investments in the same period in the previous year (which witnessed $726 million being invested across 13 transactions with disclosed values), but up by an almost similar figure compared to the seven investments ($172 million across six deals) during Apr-Jun 2012.

Blackstone’s proposal to acquire a stake in the office space portfolio of Bangalore-based developer Embassy Property Developments for a reported $230 million (Rs.1,300 crore), was the largest reported during Q3'12.