Private equity player eyes investment opportunities

Barings sets eyes on education, telecom and retail.

Baring Private Equity Partners (BPEP) India is eyeing new investment avenues in the Indian market in the coming months.

The fund that recently invested in Infrasoft Tech and the much talked-about J R G Securities, is keen on looking at five new sectors which are and would continue to witness an exponential growth in the Indian market.

Aakash Moondhra, investment manager at Barings, told Business Standard, "We are also keen to explore new investment avenues apart from the sectors where we are already present."

Barings has investments in sectors like energy, pharmaceuticals, financial services, Information technology, ITeS, consumer goods, publishing businesses and others. Recently, in July, it announced investments of up to Rs 100 crore in Infrasoft Technologies.

"We are looking at investment opportunities in education, telecom, retail, logistics and real estate sectors in India," says Moondhra. Barings will build on its successful track record of India investments over the last decade for its foray into these sectors.

Explaining the reason for entering the new sectors for investment, Moondhra, says these sectors are growing very fast on the back of increasing income levels and Barings would like to partner exceptional management teams in these sectors to participate in this growth story.

The two sectors ' education and logistic ' will also enter into the list of investment destinations for Barings as it believes that with the increase in the middle class population in the country, there will be exponential growth in the education sector, as the middle class population is a major consumer of the education sector. Meanwhile the logistics sector will soon witness a boom as it is inter-related to the growth of other sectors including the booming retail chain sectors.

Baring Private Equity Partners India is a part of Baring Private Equity Partners Group.

Baring Private Equity Partners (BPEP) was founded in 1984. It is one of the largest and most dynamic of the private equity (PE) players in emerging markets with funds under management of over $4 billion and has operations in Russia, Latin America, Europe, Asia and India. In India it is a leading long-term player with interests across sectors like IT ô ITeS, life sciences, financial services, FMCG, energy and oil & gas.

The India operations started in 1997 with the first India fund which is rated as the best performing fund of 1998 vintage. In India Barings has approximately half a billion dollars in assets under management.