Carlyle Group to invest $850 mn in India soon

Global private equity (PE) firm Carlyle Group is planning to invest around $850 million (around Rs 3,750 crore) in India in the near future, according to the fund.

It has raised $2.55 billion under Carlyle Asia Partners (CAP) III Fund from international investors to invest in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan. One- third of the amount is proposed to be invested in India. The size of the last CAP fund for the region was $1.8 billion, of which $600 million was put in housing finance company HDFC in 2007.

“We have raised the fund at the right time as companies are coming back to investing ways. They have already started contracting debt and the next in the round will be equity,” said Rajeev Gupta, managing director of the Carlyle Group in India.

While one third of the new fund will go to India, the rest will be invested in China, South Asia, Korea and Australia. “In India, corporate loan demand is coming back, order books are building up with capital goods companies and a good investment to gross domestic product ratio is back,” said Gupta.

The new fund has attracted commitments from large institutional investors from around the world, including the US, Europe, West Asia and other parts of Asia.

Carlyle established its Asian PE operation in 1999. The CAP group alone has made 21 investments in the region.

“As one of the few multi-billion dollar PE funds closings globally since the onset of the financial crisis, we are pleased with the level of support from investors, especially in a challenging fund-raising environment,” said XD Yang, managing director and co-head of CAP.

CAP III is the third, ex-Japan, Asia-Pacific private equity fund managed by Carlyle Asia Partners, which manages an aggregate committed capital of over $5 billion in three funds. The PE firm also has other Asian funds directing investments to India.