Dubai-based firm to launch $400 mn equity fund in India

Dubai, July 21 (IANS/WAM) Dubai-based investment firm Evolvence Capital Wednesday announced its plan to launch a private equity fund in India, targeting a corpus of $400 million from institutional and high net worth clients from across the globe.

The Evolvence India Fund II is its third India-focused fund.

The fund aims to make select investments in mid-market growth capital segment in the Indian private equity market, through investments, co-investments and direct investments.

The new fund follows the successful closing of Evolvence India Fund I in 2007 and Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund, a healthcare and life sciences fund, in 2008.

Evolvence India Fund II will invest with high quality private equity fund managers and established entrepreneurs in India and may selectively consider investments in secondary private equity opportunities.

“The Indian economy has shown considerable resilience registering a 7.2 percent growth in FY10 (financial year) even during the global economic downturn,” said Khaled Al Muhairy, chief executive officer of Evolvence Capital.

“We believe that this growth is broad based and will translate into long term potential in the Indian private equity space. Evolvence is committed to India and has been actively investing in this market since 2004.

“Our investors recognize India’s potential, and we strive to offer them exceptional returns by identifying attractive investment opportunities in the country. The new fund from Evolvence Capital will be focused on the mid-market growth segments, where companies need expansion capital to scale up their activities,” he added.

“We believe that the rapidly emerging Indian private equity space offers great opportunities for our institutional and high net worth investors,” said Ajit Kumar, managing director of Evolvence India Fund.

“In India, we see a shift in PE (private equity) investments from IT sector to other broader areas of the Indian economy. We are of the view that PE investments will play a critical role in India’s growth story in the coming years as rising private consumption and urbanization requires substantial investments in micro, small and medium enterprises to mega infrastructure projects.

“Over the next few years, there will be numerous growth capital opportunities in FMCG, Agro and food processing, Auto Ancillaries, Pharma and Healthcare and Infrastructure enabling sectors etc,” Kumar added.

–IANS/WAM