Kotak pvt equity fund invests 30% of corpus in seven firms

Kotak Mahindra has invested about 30 per cent of its $160 million private equity fund in seven high-potential companies in India, even as it is in the final stages of making investments in two more companies.

Nitin Deshmukh, head of private equity at Kotak, said the group is bullish on the alternative asset classes in India, which, in addition to private equity, also include real estate and venture capital, among others.

The group, which recently raised $100 million for its real estate fund from domestic investors, is expected to garner another significant amount for this fund from overseas investors.

The private equity fund titled India Growth Fund has been able to invest in a range of sectors, from home textiles to machine tools, agro-biotech to software products and drug discovery to aviation, Deshmukh said.

"We are looking at investments in the range of $5-15 million per company, with a maximum limit of $20 million," he said.

"Out of the seven private equity transactions, four are proprietary transactions," Deshmukh said, adding that the two forthcoming PE deals, which will be announced next month, will also be proprietary transactions.

The PE investments by Kotak include home textiles company Sabre International, CNC machines maker Bharat Fritz Werner, agri-biotech company Metahelix Life Sciences, software product company Four Soft, power control equipment firm Dynaspede Integrated and south-based full-service airline Paramount Airways.

Kotak, through its partner SEAF Management LLC of the USA, is assisting Indian companies to find new markets and relationships in geographies, such as South America, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and even China.