Blackstone to invest in NSL Seeds

Private equity firm Blackstone plans to invest up to $80 million (Rs 400 crore) in Hyderabad-based NSL Seeds that would help the latter to fuel its growth plans.

"We are investing anywhere between $50-80 million in NSL. The investment would be done in the first week of April and may go up in size later," a source close to the development told PTI here.

NSL Seeds is the flagship company of the NSL Group and is mainly engaged in the R&D, production and marketing of seeds and has a 35 per cent market share in the segment.

"Blackstone's involvement will be very valuable in our journey from a privately-held company to a publicly-listed world class Bio-Agri franchise," NSL Group's Chairman and Managing Director Prabhakar Rao said.

Both companies signed the agreement today.

NSL plans to use the fund to boost its R&D activities production and marketing of seeds. The company has 25 stocking depots, 1,000 distributors and 20,000 sub-dealers across the country.