He handled $3 billion of investments during his stint at private equity giant Temasek Holdings. Exactly a year after quitting as head of the firm’s India operations where he spent six years, Manish Kejriwal, 44, is back with a bang.
Ontario Teachers Pension Plans (OTPP), one of the largest pension funds in the world, has agreed to invest about $100 million in his new private equity (PE) fund, Kedaara Capital. Though a clutch of PE veterans are in fundraising mode, Kejriwal’s is the second case in the last two years where such a hefty commitment has been made into a first-time PE fund based out of India.
In 2010, Renuka Ramnath, the former ICICI Ventures head, had received a commitment of $100 million from Canada Pension Plan (CPP) for her PE fund, Multiple Alternate Asset Management.
| CV: MANISH KEJRIWAL |
|
Kedaara Capital was launched in October last year by Manish Kejriwal and Sunish Sharma, former MD- General Atlantic India.
Kedaara, which is process of raising a $500 million fund, has partnered with international private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier and Rice (CD&R). According to reports, CD&R had acquired a minority stake in Kedaara, which is not yet confirmed.
Kejriwal, who is married to Sunaina, daughter of Rahul Bajaj, is known for his investments in large listed entities. He had made a diversified portfolio for Temasek India. During his tenure, Temasek’s major investments in the listed space include $2 billion deal to acquire five per cent in Bharti Airtel. In 2006, it bought close to 10 per cent in Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) from open market.
Kejriwal had helped Temasek to expand its portfolio from energy to media. During his tenure, Temasek invested in Coal India, GMR Energy, Essar Energy, NSE, Tata Sky, Lokmat Media and Max India.
More From This Section
OTPP is Canada’s third largest pension fund with $115 billion (C$117 billion) in assets. An independent organization, OTPP invests the pension fund's assets and administers the pensions of 0.3 million active and retired teachers in Ontario.
According to sources in the know, OTPP has already given commitment of $50 million and next $50 million will be committed at time of final closure of the fund at $500 million.
Mails sent to Manish Kejriwal and Deborah Allan, Director - Communications and Media Relations, OTPP did not elicit any response.
"Each cash-rich Canadian fund has major allocations for emerging markets. However they are yet to enter the emerging markets in a big way. Contrary to the conventional US funds, which prefer the established players, Canadian funds are open to support the new entrants," said an industry veteran who is into fundraising mode.
Though a clutch of PE veterans are busy with fundraising for last couple of years, only a handful of them could successfully close their funds. Ramnath raised a $450 million fund while Ajay Relan, former India head of Citi Venture Capital International, is in process of raising his second fund — a $500-million mezzanine fund, after deploying most of his $510 million first fund.
Other veterans in the fray are Subbu Subramaniam (former partner, Baring India PE), who set up MCap Fund Advisors, PR Srinivasan (former head of Citi Venture Capital International), who set up Exponentia Capital, Jayanta Banerjee (ex-ICICI Venture director), who floated PE firm, Pravi Capital, which got merged with the ASK Group and Sumit Chandwani (former executive director of ICICI Venture) who floated Arth Capital.