BENGALURU : US different funding agency Värde Partners plans to invest as a lot as $1 billion to develop its portfolio in India as a part of a broader technique to faucet potential alternatives in the credit score market, its high India government mentioned.
“Over the following 12 months, throughout 6-8 transactions, we’re taking a look at wherever round $800 million to a billion {dollars} in phrases of pipeline, the place we see some actual transactions, which have progressed nicely or are at levels of development,” Sandeep Chandak, managing director at Värde Partners, said in an interview. He said Värde is looking to invest $100-200 million per deal.
According to Chandak, while the investments will be largely sector agnostic, it will consider a variety of sectors where companies are strong, “from real estate to infrastructure to industrials. I would also include tech companies that have a business model and are more evolved late-stage tech companies at the pre-IPO stage. There are also some opportunities there,” he mentioned with out elaborating.
The personal investor’s most up-to-date offers embody shopping for a 15% stake for ₹933 crore in Anil Ambani group’s debt-laden Reliance Power Ltd. Last 12 months, Värde pumped in ₹550 crore in Reliance Infrastructure, a part of the identical group.
In India, over the final three to 4 years, Värde has deployed greater than $3 billion throughout greater than 20 transactions.
Since its inception in 1993, the agency has invested $90 billion and manages greater than $13 billion in property throughout North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
India makes up about 40% of Värde’s investments in the Asia-Pacific market. The investor additionally has a strategic partnership with Aditya Birla Capital in India because it actively acquires debt via its asset reconstruction firm (ARC) arm. These embody transactions with GMR Airports and GMR Infrastructure and shopping for Punjab National Bank’s debt publicity to KSK Mahanadi Power.
The earlier stage of transactions in India have been particular conditions, and in the final couple of years, the combination of performing credit score to particular conditions is break up equally, Chandak mentioned, suggesting the agency may shut extra credit score offers.
“In India in the present day, personal credit score will most likely be a 3rd to half of our focus space, and the remaining two-thirds to half could be particular conditions offers,” said Chandak.
In the early days, especially since the IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code) law was passed, the firm closed several secondary transactions and private credit and special situations deals, including one-time settlements and debt to tech companies.In December 2019, Värde was part of a group of investors that led one of the biggest OTS transactions in India worth $922 million for distressed power producer RattanIndia Power Ltd.
“As an alternative capital provider, we should be flexible in terms of how the economy and the country are going and what kind of opportunities the country is providing. India as a country offers a fairly large opportunity on the private credit side. It’s a large economy with strong GDP growth, and you have a limited supply of private credit, which is done in an institutional manner. All of that implies that it will be an attractive market for many, many years to come for someone like Värde,” Chandak mentioned.