IL&FS private equity arm scales down ambition, mops up $225 mn

IL&FS Investment Managers (IIML), the private equity subsidiary of infrastructure financing major IL&FS, has closed its $225-million growth equity fund. In mid-2007, IIML had effected the first closure at $150 million and it brought about the final closure at $225 million recently.

Industry sources said IL&FS Investment Managers were planning to raise a $400-million fund, but had to close it at $225 million, given the current market conditions.

IIML is among the earliest venture capital and private equity players in India and, during the course of the last 14 years, it has raised and managed nine funds, ranging from sector-specific funds like real estate to sector-agnostic private equity funds. It currently manages and advises investments in excess of $2 billion across all sectors.

Archana Hingorani, CEO and executive director, IIML, confirmed that their growth equity fund has been closed at $225 million and said the fund was subscribed by a range of global firms. Industry information indicates that this fund follows its earlier $153-million Levereage India Fund.

The new $225-million growth equity fund precedes the recently announced $895-million realty fund, the second real estate fund from IIML.

In addition to these two recently closed funds, IIML is focusing on the infrastructure sector along with Standard Chartered Bank with a targeted corpus of $800 million for investing across infrastructure assets in Asia.

The fund, Standard Chartered IL&FS Asia Infrastructure Growth Fund SCI Asia, will invest in high-growth infrastructure assets in rapidly-expanding Asian markets, primarily in India and China. Each of the sponsors, SCB and IL&FS, have committed $150 million to the fund.

SCI Asia has already built a portfolio of over $200 million of seed assets, comprising operating toll roads and power plants and the fund’s team has access to nearly $2 billion in potential equity commitments.