Amit Goenka raises Rs 400 cr in PE funds

Amit Goenka, former managing director and CEO of Essel Financial Services, has raised two private equity funds with a total corpus of Rs 400 crore.

Goenka, who quit media tycoon Subhash Chandra's Essel Group early this year, has got commitments of Rs 100 crore each from high net-worth individuals and financial institutions for the two funds.

The first is a debt fund of Rs 200 crore, which will be invested in non-convertible debentures (NCD) and debt instruments of property developers, said Goenka, managing director and CEO of Nisus Finance Services (Nifco), a new company set up by him and other investors. Goenka said the fund has also got commitments of $100 million ( Rs 600 crore) from foreign institutional investors, effectively taking the corpus of debt fund to Rs 800 crore.

"The debt fund will make late-stage funding and securitise cash flows of residential projects," said Goenka.

The second is a residential bulk-buying fund, which will buy apartments from developers at deep discounts and sell it in the market for a specific returns.

Ajay Piramal group's Piramal Fund Management has already launched Indiareit Apartment Fund, which will buy apartments from developers in bulk.

The debt fund has made three trades, one NCD transaction in Delhi and two other deals in Mumbai worth Rs 80 crore, said Goenka.

The residential bulk-buying fund has done two deals in Mumbai and Bangalore worth Rs 120 crore, he added.