DE Shaw's FVCI application pending with Sebi for 6 years

Global private equity and investment management major DE Shaw's application to set up a foreign venture capital fund in India has been pending with Sebi for nearly six years, as the US-based firm is yet to provide additional details sought by the market regulator.

DE Shaw, which has also set up a financial sector joint venture with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) in India, had filed this application with Sebi in July, 2007 through DE Shaw Composite Investments (Mauritius) II Ltd.

However, the current status of the application reads as "Incomplete information" and reply still "awaited from the applicant".

Emailed queries sent to DE Shaw Group remained unanswered on this issue. The group also did not reply to queries regarding the current status of its RIL JV, which was announced in 2011, but not much details have emerged about its operations since then.

DE Shaw is a global investment and technology development with more than 1,000 employees. It has operations in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Under  Sebi's guidelines, it is mandatory for a foreign investor that it should have got itself registered with Sebi before it proceeds to make investment in Venture Capital Company in India.

More than 150 FVCIs (Foreign Venture Capital Investors) are currently registered with Sebi to do business in India, while applications are pending from 10 others, including DE Shaw unit.

Among the pending applications, DE Shaw's is the oldest, while five applications were filed this year itself.

Apart from DE Shaw, nine applications pending for Sebi approval's  are IDG Ventures India, Blackstone Capital Partners (Singapore) VI FVCI Pte Ltd, Faktory Ventures Ltd, BCP V Singapore FVCI Pte Ltd, Inventus Capital Partners Fund II Ltd, Karakoram Ltd, CDC India Opportunities Ltd, India Infrastructure Fund (Singapore) PTE, Ltd and Nirvana Digital Investment Holding Ltd.