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| PE players eye Punjab, HP | |
| Vikas Sharma / New Delhi/ Chandigarh December 03, 2008, 0:31 IST | |
Around 25-30 private equity (PE) players and venture capitalists, most of them international players, are eyeing the Punjab, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh region for various investment opportunities.
According to Grant Thornton, a UK-based accountancy firm, Chandigarh is definitely emerging as hot market for the PE players who are also funding various business propositions in Punjab and Himachal.
Paras Arora, director of Grant Thornton (Chandigarh branch), said Chandigarh was drawing attention of venture capitalists and PE players who are willing to fund entrepreneurs in Punjab.
Arora maintains saturation of tier-1 cities have opened the avenues for tier-II cities, and PE players are eyeing entrepreneurs in industrial areas like Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Baddi.
It is not just the PE players but the entrepreneurs too who have approached Grant Thornton to seek good investments for expansion.
Refusing to divulge the names of companies who have shown interest to grow with PE players (a company was in premature talks), Arora said a couple of pharmaceutical players from Chandigarh had approached them with PE funding assistance to finance their acquisition plans in the US and the European markets. Similarly, a pharmaceutical company based in the region, which is looking at starting its pharmacy retail chain, is also seeking PE funding.
Arora revealed that the PE players who are coming to Chandigarh are looking at investing in sectors like auto ancillary manufacturers, pharmaceutical and textiles.
Commenting on the textile players, Arora said that the PE players were interested in funding textile firms despite gloomy export conditions as they believed that the domestic market was still attractive. Also, the PE firms could help the textile manufacturers in Ludhiana to forge tie-ups with retail chains since organised retail business in the country has been witnessing a big growth.
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