Singapore-based group announces first investment in Indian credit space

A Singapore-based Foreign Portfolio Investor, DMI Income Fund, on Wednesday announced its first investment in the Indian credit space.

The fund invested USD 7.8 million in June in non-convertible debentures issued by the Delhi-based Ansal API group.

DMI Income Fund is based out of Singapore and was created to provide foreign investors a platform to participate in India's rapidly growing credit markets.

The fund expects to invest between 200 million dollars and 250 million dollars in Indian corporate credit over the next twelve to eighteen months.

The fund invests in listed, rated and secured Indian corporate debt. It generates quarterly returns and is open-ended. In addition to the unhedged USD and JPY classes, the fund also has hedged USD and JPY classes to give investors further product choice.

The fund will be managed in Singapore by IIFL Capital Pte. Ltd. DMI Management Services Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of DMI Finance Private Limited, will act as the Indian advisor.

DMI Finance's co-founder and joint-Managing Director, Shivashish Chatterjee, said, "India needs hundreds of billions of dollars in debt capital. Global investor interest in Indian local currency corporate debt is high. We expect this interest to rise further as local markets are opened and existing barriers to entry are dismantled."

"Indian local credit is becoming a recognized sub-class within the larger Emerging Market debt asset class and efforts such as DMI Income Fund should be very attractive for international allocators of capital," he added.

DMI Finance's co-founder and joint-Managing Director, Yuvraj Singh added, "DMI Finance has been a corporate lender in India since 2009 which means that we have successfully managed credit risk through a significant real estate and economic downturn. Our asset management and advisory effort makes this experience, underwriting and risk management available to DMI Income Fund and others as the local partner of choice with a deep sourcing network."

IIFL Capital Pte.Ltd.'s CEO Amit Shah said, "IIFL Capital's specialized expertise across key areas and DMI Finance's on-ground experience and deep understanding of the Indian credit markets will provide global investors the much needed avenue to opportunistically chase attractive yields from a variety of options available in the Indian credit market.