Rajesh Khanna, former managing director of Warburg Pincus’ India operations, is set to join the breed of private equity (PE) veterans launching their own ventures, industry sources told DNA.
Warburg’s India office confirmed the development, saying Dalip Pathak, managing director, who established the PE firm’s India business in 1994 and is currently leader of the firm’s European effort, will assume direct oversight of Warburg Pincus’ investment activities in India.
“Rajesh Khanna will depart from the firm to pursue the formation of an independent investment business in India,” the official statement said.
Unlike a few other separations in the past, Khanna’s departure has been a very amicable one, said the industry source.
“He (Khanna) is in the process of putting together an investment strategy and is likely to raise a fund with a corpus of over $250 million,” said the source.
Khanna couldn’t be reached for confirmation on the fund size.
In December 2009, Harsha Raghavan (former India head of Candover Investments) decided to launch his own venture, Steer Capital, after the European PE major Candover Investments shut its India operations. Media reports suggested that Raghavan partnered with WNS (Holdings) co-founder Neeraj Bhargava to set up a new PE fund. DNA was unable to verify this association though.
In August 2009, Subbu Subramaniam, erstwhile partner with Barings Private Equity India, quit the fund. While it is not clear what Subramaniam’s future plans were, he had indicated in an earlier interview with DNA Money that he’s evaluating various options besides looking at the possibility of raising up to $500 million.
Source: DNA India