Citigroup's PE arm to buy stake worth $56 million in Sansera: sources

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Citi Venture Capital International, the private equity arm of Citigroup , is in talks to buy a majority stake in India's Sansera Engineering for about 3.4 billion rupees, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Bangalore-based Sansera, which manufactures engineering parts for the automobile industry, counts Harley-Davidson Inc , General Motors , Honda Motor Co. and Suzuki Co Ltd among its customers.

"We are in advance talks and an announcement could be made very soon," one of the sources told Reuters. Both sources declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

A Citi spokesman declined to comment, while Sansera did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If a deal is sealed, it would mark CVCI's second major investment in India in the last one year after it invested $138 million into tour operator Cox & King's British business.

Private equity firms invested about $2.3 billion in India during the quarter ended June, up from 17 percent during the same period last year, according to provisional data from industry tracker Venture Intelligence.

(Reporting by Indulal P.M.; Editing by Sunil Nair)