ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private bank, is planning to set up a private equity fund with a likely corpus of $200 million (Rs 872 crore) for small and medium enterprises, Sanjiv Sherawat, general manger, business banking division, said on Monday.
The fund would be created in five to six months, he said on the sidelines of a seminar on SMEs organised by Confederation of Indian Industry. The bank’s private equity business comes under subsidiary ICICI Venture, which manages $2 billion (Rs 8,718 crore).
“The PE fund meant for the SME sector would be under the direct management of ICICI Bank (and not ICICI Venture),” Sherawat said. The fund would be investing in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, jewellery, textiles and capital goods.