India may get Swedish PE major EQT boost with up to $5 bn funding

Swedish PE major planning to invest the amount this financial year

Swedish private-equity major EQT is planning to invest up to $5 billion in India this year even as its arm EQT Private Capital Asia closed a new mid-market growth fund, which received a commitment of $1.6 billion from investors.

EQT has not set deployment targets by geography for the new fund but expects India to be the largest market for the mid-market growth (MMG) fund.

The fund has made four investments to date. Two have been in Indian companies.

EQT manages assets worth $250 billion worldwide and has invested over $8 billion in more than 30 companies in India, including in HDFC Credila, Indium Software, Indira IVF, and O2 Power.

With this, EQT joins the list of several global private-equity players that are making investment plans for India.

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Blackstone Group, which has invested $50 billion in India, plans to inject an additional $25 billion in the years ahead, with the primary focus on infrastructure, data centres, and logistics. New York-based KKR & Co, which has invested $11 billion in India so far, wants to invest $10 billion more.

Singapore’s Temasek, which has invested $17 billion in India, plans to invest another $9-10 billion in the next three years in health care, information technology, software as a service, and fintech, said its executives in July last year.

Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management is also a large investor in India’s telecom tower infrastructure, realty, and renewable energy sectors, with bets worth $25 billion, and plans to invest $10 billion in India over the next three to five years.

The Asia-focused mid-market buyout fund by EQT would focus on technology, services, and health care across Asia, prioritising India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Australia.

It is an extension of EQT’s established largecap buyout platform in Asia.

EQT said the MMG strategy invested in high-growth mid-market companies across Asia.

“The region is the epicentre of global growth, expected to contribute 60 percent of global GDP by the end of 2024. Yet Asia’s private markets are relatively underserved – for example, in 2023 just 9 percent of capital raised globally went to Asia-focused funds. This dedicated strategy aims to help address this financing gap,” it said in a statement.

MMG is a natural extension of EQT Private Capital Asia’s large-cap buyout strategy and one of the few scaled pan-Asian investment strategies dedicated to mid-market control buyouts.

It employs the same thematic investment approach, centred on the technology, services, health care, and technology services sectors.

It leverages EQT’s pan-Asian presence -- with more than 100 investment professionals across eight offices -- with a particular focus on India, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Australia.