Blackstone emerges as top PE investor in 2010

Global private equity giant Blackstone has emerged as the top private equity investor in India investing a total of $441 million during 2010 which saw the PE investors invest $5.4 billion, a growth of 56 per cent over 2009 levels of $3.45 billion.

Blackstone was followed by Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek ($375 million) and then KKR with $358 million.

CG Srividya - Partner, Specialist Advisory Services, Grant Thornton said that maximum investments have taken place in the power & energy sector, followed by real estate & infrastructure and banking & financial services. “There have been several significant PE exits in 2010, which have been made possible by some of the high value M&A transactions as well as the considerable pick up in the IPO segment,” she added.

However, in terms of more number of deals IFC, the investment arm of World Bank, has come on top striking 24 deals followed by Sequoia Capital (13 deals) and then Nexus with ten deals.

Commenting on the Indian PE and M&A scenario during 2010, Srividya said: “The M&A transactions have increased multifold in 2010 to reach a $ 50 billion value as compared to $12 billion in 2009. The number of deals have shown a 90 per cent increase from 330 in 2009 to 623 in 2010. This is very close to the 2007 performance at $ 51 billion, which has been the highest for M&A so far. The activity levels have been high even towards the close of the year, with some significant deals such as Hero Group’s acquisition of 26 per cent stake from Honda Motors in Hero Honda and Reckitt Benckiser Groups acquisition of Paras Pharma, closing in December.”

While outbound M&As have far exceeded inbound deals unlike 2009, there has been an unprecedented level of transactions in domestic M&A at close to $ 20 billion, primarily driven by the much required consolidation in the sectors focused on the Indian market. Telecom sector has seen the maximum overall values, followed by Oil & Gas and Healthcare & Pharma.