State Bank of India, LIC invest in Reliance Private Equity

Large Indian banks and financial institutions such as State Bank of India (SBI), Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), General Insurance Corporation (GIC), Bank of Baroda (BoB) and IDBI Bank have helped Reliance Equity Advisors, which is of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, mop up around Rs 1,500 crore.

While this has been tied up in less than three months, the company is expecting to raise another Rs 500 crore over the next two weeks, Reliance Equity Advisors Chief Executive Officer Ramesh Venkat told Business Standard in an interview. He, however, did not disclose the investors.

Although the company has not announced a closure date, Venkat is confident of achieving the target.

“We plan to make two investments every quarter. The average deal size will remain around Rs 150 crore. We will soon start with the second round of fund raising after investments from this fund picks up,” Venkat said.

While the large banks and insurers such as SBI, BoB, IDBI Bank, LIC and GIC have invested around Rs 100 crore each, some of the old-generation private banks, which are among the dozen investors, have chipped in with Rs 30-50 crore each.

Sources said Enam and JP Morgan have also chipped in.

“We are seeing active participation by domestic players in PEs. As the overseas sources have not yet revived, raising capital from abroad can be difficult. PEs will soon shift their focus to India since the market is untapped and opportunity is huge,” Venkat said.

However, he mentioned that Reliance Equity Advisors was not averse to raising funds from abroad. It planned to invest in education, logistics and infrastructure services among others. It will make its first investment in August. The company has a pipeline of around 12 companies. In the first two companies, it will make an investment of Rs 150 crore each.