By IANS,
Kolkata : Private equity (PE) firm India Value Fund Advisors will complete raising around $800 million (about Rs.40 billion/Rs.4,000 crore) for the fourth series of its India Value Fund by next month, a partner of the company said here Monday.
“The fund is being raised mostly from overseas investors comprising fund-of-funds backed by financial institutions, endowment funds backed by educational institutions, pension funds, sovereign funds and also HNIs (high net worth individuals) across Asia, the US and Europe,” George Thomas, partner at the PE fund, told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar on funding strategies.
A fund of funds is an investment strategy of one investment fund holding a portfolio of other investment funds, rather than investing directly in shares, bonds or other securities. Endowment fund is a trust fund, from which the income can be expended, but not its principal sum, while sovereign fund is a state-owned investment fund comprising financial assets such as stocks, bonds or precious metals.
Saying most of these investors have been with this firm since it came out with the first series of the India Value Fund in 2004, Thomas added: “They are not willing to break the relationship even in a situation of global liquidity crunch.”
India Value Fund will focus on sectors such as healthcare, media and entertainment, retail supply chain and micro-finance among others for investment, he said.
“In healthcare, we would be going to those companies where we had made original funding of projects like hospitals,” Thomas said, adding: “Micro-finance is one sector that we have been studying seriously.”
Corporates where India Value Fund has invested include HDFC Bank, Radio City and Mahindra Castings.