Ambit scouts for foreign credit

In talks with two European banks to fund M&A needs of clients.

The Ashok Wadhwa-promoted Ambit group has restructured itself into a fully fledged financial services group that includes investment banking and asset management, after having sold its consulting businesses.

The group is also in talks with two European banks, including Societe Generale, for an investment banking alliance to finance acquisitions by its clients.

"We are in active discussions with two European banks for a strategic alliance, which would help us to access their balance sheet," said Ashok Wadhwa, managing director, Ambit Holdings. The proposed alliance, likely to be finalised this month itself, would only be for cross-border mergers and acquisitions in Europe and Ambit would look for another tie-up for the US market in future. Wadhwa did not reveal the names of the two European banks, but banking sources confirmed that one of them was Societe Generale.

Ambit Capital, its securities business headed by Nilesh Shah (formerly with Edelweiss), received the portfolio management service (PMS) licence a couple of months ago and in the first 15 days of operations, it has built a Rs 25 crore portfolio of assets under management. In the wealth management segment, Ambit plans to manage assets worth Rs 2,000-3,000 crore in the next 2-3 years by introducing new products such as estate planning, capital gains planning, family wealth planning, etc. "Wealth management will be a very focused area for us," Wadhwa said.

Last December, it entered into a joint venture with the Network18 group and Centurion Bank of Punjab for launching a joint venture for retail broking.

For the asset management business it has a 74:26 joint venture with Japan's Nikko Asset, which is still awaiting regulatory approvals. The mutual fund venture plans to start operations by the first quarter of the next year and is in the process of recruiting the key 10-12 people.

Ambit is also planning to launch a $100 million mid-market private equity fund with a greenshoe option of $25 million, the fund-raising process for which is on.

"We have indentified sectors such entertainment and leisure, healthcare, logistics and infrastructure services and branded foods, wherein our average ticket size of investment would be $10 million." said Rajeev Agarwal, who has recently joined from private equity firm India Value Fund to head this initiative.

Wadhwa also continues to be the sponsor of India Value Fund (IVF), which has recently raised its third $400 million fund.