SBI in pact with Oman's SGRF, to invest $50 mn in Oman-India fund

SGRF to infuse $150 mn; OIJIF Fund II is targeting a corpus of $300 million by 2017-end

State General Reserve Fund of Oman (SGRF), a Sovereign Wealth Fund and the State Bank of India will infuse $150 million and $50 million respectively in private equity fund Oman India Joint Investment Fund (OIJIF).

A senior SBI executive said the bank is backing the private equity fund for its second offering (Fund II). This decision is driven by the performance in the first fund and capital requirement for mid-size companies in the country.

OIJIF, a mid-market India focussed private equity fund, has announced the first close for its second fund OIJIF Fund II, at $220 million. In addition to SBI and SGRF, a few new investors are part of the first close.

OIJIF Fund II is targeting a corpus of $300 million by 2017-end. Keeping in line with the larger fund corpus, OIJIF will look to make larger ticket size investments from this fund. A typical size of a single investment is expected to be $20-25 million, the SBI executive said.

The first fund of $100 million, has been fully invested across seven companies and has returned around 50 per cent of the capital invested after divesting around 15 per cent of its investment. Rest of the portfolio companies are expected to be divested over the next few years.

OIJIF will continue with its investment strategy of focussing on mid-market companies that are market leaders where it is able to deploy a combination of capital and experience to unlock the companies' true potential and spur growth.