Blackstone's Amit Jain jumps ship to rival Carlyle as India co-head of PE

At Blackstone, Jain sat on the boards of Essel Propack, Aakash Educational Services, Sona Comstar, Fino Payments Bank

Private equity firm Carlyle on Monday announced that Amit Jain has joined the company as a managing director based in Mumbai and co-head of Carlyle’s India investment advisory team. Jain’s previous stint was with rival Blackstone, where he worked for 10 years and was most recently a senior managing director in its Mumbai office.

At Blackstone, Jain sat on a number of boards including Essel Propack where Blackstone had acquired a majority stake for $470 million in 2019, Aakash Educational Services which was acquired by edtech giant Byju’s in an estimated billion-dollar deal, Sona Comstar which went public in June, Fino Payments Bank and CMS Infosystems.

Carlyle said Jain’s appointment underscores its commitment to India, which it views as one of the most attractive investment destinations globally. Since becoming one of the first international private equity firms to enter the region in 2005, Carlyle has invested and committed over $5.5 billion dollars in the country across 44 investments to date.

During his tenure there at Blackstone, Jain was involved in investments in the consumer, healthcare, auto, telecom and packaging sectors as well as parts of financial services. At Carlyle, he will lead the investment advisory team and oversee the team’s investment strategy across sectors. He will work with Neeraj Bharadwaj, who will continue as co-head of Carlyle’s India investment advisory team.

In a rejig, Bharadwaj and Ling Yang, the current head of Carlyle’s healthcare vertical in China, have been appointed co-heads of healthcare across Asia. Healthcare is one of Carlyle’s core sectors globally and remains an area of significant focus for Carlyle in Asia, where the firm has invested $2.8 billion over 15 years.

Amit Jain said, I am delighted to be joining Carlyle, which has a stellar reputation for helping Indian businesses grow and thrive both at home and overseas. Carlyle has exciting ambitions for further investment in India as well as globally, and I look forward to contributing to the firm’s continued development.”

Prior to Blackstone, he worked at McKinsey & Company and started his career with Hindustan Unilever. He holds an MBA from the Indian School of Business and a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur.