July sees 11 PE exits worth USD 376 mn: Report

Indian PE funds have returned significant amount of capital to their investors and July 2018 recorded 11 exits totalling USD 376 million, says an EY report.

According to the report, there were eight exits worth USD 352 million in July last year.

Through exit route, private equity investors realise the return on their investment after a certain amount of time. Some of the widely used exit routes include Initial Public Offering (IPO), secondary buyout and through open market.

"Exit activity, on the other hand, has been somewhat dampened by the volatility seen in the stock markets over the recent past, especially in the mid-cap and small-cap spaces.

"Nonetheless, there is a good amount of deal activity underpinned by the secondary and strategic sale segments," said Vivek Soni, Partner and National Leader Private Equity Services, EY India.

Soni further said he expects the second half of 2018 to be as good as the first half for exits.

In terms of number of exits, open market route led the tally with deals worth USD 156 million across six exits followed by two secondary exits worth USD 105 million.

There was one PE-backed IPO last month which saw TA Associates partially exit its stake in TCNS Clothing, which owns the women's wear brand "W", for USD 72 million.

From sector perspective, financial services and pharmaceuticals were the leaders with one deal each of USD 110 million and USD 105 million, respectively.

The largest exit in July 2018 saw IFC sell its 4 per cent stake in AU Small Finance Bank for USD 110 million.

Meanwhile, private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investments totalled USD 1.5 billion last month through 63 transactions, following which the deal tally for January-July this year stood at USD 16.9 billion.