The International Finance Corporation, Washington, (IFC) the multilateral investment arm of the World Bank, is close to pick up stakes in two India focussed private equity (PE) funds – Aloe Environment Fund 2 (Aloe 2) and Samara Capital Partners Fund I Ltd (Samara Capital).
Industry sources see the IFC move as a vote of confidence in the fledgling PE segment which has just started flocking the country.
According to information available with FE, Aloe, which is promoted by Vivek Tandon and Jean-Pascal Tranié, former executives of Viventures Partners, is floating its second green fund – Aloe Environment Fund 2 – which is a closed ended PE fund eyeing stakes in companies developing green technology and equipment.
The fund, which will have a target size of 100 million euro to 150 million euro, will focus mainly on companies in India and China working in the environmental vertical.
IFC is expected to pick up 15% to 20% of the equity stake in Aloe 2 depending on the final fund size by investing 10 million euro to 15 million euro. The fund is sponsored by Leading Environmental Solutions and Services (LESS) Ltd, a strategic fund of funds (FoF).
Similarly, the World Bank sibling is also planning to take an equity stake in Samara Capital, a fund floated by three former Citigroup investment experts Sumeet Narang, Gautam Gode and Radhika Dubash.
Samara will have a total commitment of $125 million, in which IFC will invest $10 million through equity. Samara will enter into deals valued below $20 million in companies operating in the financial services, media and telecom, secondary infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, and information technology space.
The Indian PE segment is slowly getting bigger with players lining up a slew of a deals recently.
However, the segment has not witnessed any mega deals so far with a size of over $1 billion.
Source : Financial Express