PE investment in India rises 59 pc in August on high value investments

Private equity investments in India stood at USD 2.11 billion (about Rs 14,700 crore) in August, a sharp increase of 59 per cent from the year-ago month, primarily driven by large-ticket transactions, despite the economic uncertainties surrounding the global economy, according to a Grant Thornton report.

Private equity (PE) funding stood at USD 1.33 billion (about Rs 9,300 crore) in August 2018, Grant Thornton's monthly PE Dealtracker for August 2019 report noted.

"The regulatory and policy framework in India continues to be favourable for heightened PE deal activity with values recorded at USD 2.1 billion, 1.6 times the August 2018 deal values, driven by eight high-value investments of and above USD 100 million each. This displays a strong desire among PE players to invest in India," Grant Thornton India LLP Director Pankaj Chopda said.

 

"While policy actions and missteps have played an important role in shaping the global economic events and their impact on market sentiment, active policy stimulus will be the need of the hour to support deal activity in the face of adverse macro-economic indicators," he added.

In terms of volume, PE deals stood at 69 in August this year against 67 in the year-ago month, a decline of 3 per cent, the report said.

However, compared to July 2019, August witnessed a "significant downtrend in the deal activity with 2.6 times fall in the investment values with a marginal 3 per cent fall in the volumes."

Infrastructure sector dominated the PE investment chart in August this year with the GIC's USD 622 million investment in IRB Infrastructure's BOT assets, the report said. This deal also marked the biggest infrastructure investment till date by a single sovereign wealth fund.

The start-up sector continued to occupy the larger share of volumes with 68 per cent, dominated by investments in fintech companies, followed by data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), retail and discovery platforms.

This shows a continued uptrend amid the prevailing economic and political crisis, the report said.

Infra, start-ups, e-commerce, IT, manufacturing and real estate sectors were impressive, garnering big ticket investments of over USD 100 million each, it added.