Motilal former i-bank head charts new path

Starts boutique M&A advisory and fund management business

Ashutosh Maheshvari, known for setting up financial group Motilal Oswal’s investment banking practice, has moved out to set up a boutique investment bank and an Alternative Investment Fund (AIF).

He served as chief executive officer at Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors for over a decade, after stints with CRISIL and Rabo India Finance. In his over two-decade career, he is credited with many mid-size and small-size deals, besides large ones such as Aban Offshore’s $1-billion-plus acquisition of Norwegian drilling company Sinvest in 2006.   

For his investment banking advisory business, he has signed an exclusive agreement for India with global merger and acquisition (M&A) partnership IMAP. This global partnership of 40 independent M&A advisory firms together ranked fourth in deals up to $200 million last year.

“In the boutique space, we are completely differentiated with our global network,” says Maheshvari, whose firm will be known as IMAP India. For sourcing the deals, he's tying up with large independent audit firms in cities, which have clients but do not have reach for M&A. “We are trying to provide them a global platform, which can help us scale up very quickly,” he says.

Automobile components is one industry seeing an increasing number of mid-size and small-size M&As as large global automobile companies increase their presence in India. This has led to pressure on Indian vendors to do global acquisitions, to remain relevant to global auto makers. Likewise, global vendors are looking at acquisitions in India to cater to the local demand of their global clients.

“Declining inflation, a strengthening workforce, higher economic growth and positive investor sentiment will drive Indian M&A,” said Jurgis Oniunas, managing partner and chairman, IMAP.  “The coming decade looks very interesting for India and there is a unique opportunity for us to combine the local franchise across India with the global reach of the IMAP network in the mid-market segment,” he said.

For the AIF,  he's joined hands with Amit Khosla, managing director at Asiabridge Capital, and Sidharth Bhargava, executive director at Goldman Sachs, under a new firm, Catalyst Fund Management & Advisory.

The first fund it is planning is in the area of structured finance for industrial and manufacturing companies. It has targeted an initial corpus of about $300 million for this.  “Both private equity and traditional banking finance is in decline to these industries. So, there is a big opportunity here,” says Maheshvari. Once this fund is in place, Catalyst would target more thematic funds for financial services, as well as for agriculture and food businesses.