| Though the primary market is hardly seeing any activity, few entrepreneurs are panicking as yet. One, most of them continue to sit on oodles of cash, often enough raised earlier for projects that are yet to take off; second, many believe there's enough private equity out there waiting to step in. A study by Nexgen Capitals suggests this may not be so easy. According to Nexgen, a total of $5.3 billion was invested by private equity in public enterprises (PIPE!) in 2007 "" so this does not include private equity deals with unlisted firms "" but a year later, this was worth just $4.4 billion on a mark-to-market basis. It is obvious PE firms don't look at one year losses/gains, but the numbers are important since it is unlikely PE firms are willing to be as liberal as in the past. Among the sectors that have done well are telecom (where mark-to-market gains, mainly in Airtel, are over 25 per cent), banking (where the gains are a moderate 8 per cent despite a 50 per cent market-to-market loss in the investment in Yes Bank) and retail. Infrastructure, the sector where there's a lot of PE interest, fared the worst (after the media!) "" while the Punj Lloyd investment lost 26 per cent in value, that in GMR lost 65 per cent. |
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