At least 38 private equity deals worth nearly Rs 4,500 crore ($890 million) were sealed in January, according to Research firm Four-S Services. In the largest deal of the month, online retailer Flipkart raised Rs 750 crore ($150 million) from existing investors Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management. This is so far the largest deal in the online retail space in India. This was followed by Temasek’s investment of around Rs 670 crore ($135 million) to buy 4.9 per cent stake in consumer products firm Godrej Consumer Products in the single largest alternative investment deal in the Indian FMCG industry. Logix Group sold four office buildings in Noida to IL&FS Investment Managers for a little less than Rs 600 crore.
Infrastructure topped the investment chart, accounting for 21.7 per cent of investments with a deal value of Rs 950 crore. Real estate occupied the second slot with 19.6 per cent worth of investments across three deals. Health care (18.3 per cent share), retail (17.4 per cent) and manufacturing (16 per cent) were the other major sectors.
On a month-over-month basis, the investment was up 53 per cent from $580 million of investments across 33 deals in the month of December 2011. On a year-on-year basis, the investments are five per cent down from the investments of $942 million across 27 deals for the same month last year.
Last year aggregated $11.16 billion of investments across 422, registering 40 per cent year-on-year growth compared to investments worth $7.96 billion across 328 deals in 2010.