Carlyle sets eyes on $100 M India expansion

By agencies   |   Friday, 18 August 2006, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: Following private equity major Carlyle's raising of $668 million in June for its third growth capital fund, the company was looking at an investment of $100 million in Indian companies over the next one-year. Carlyle already has outstanding investments to the tune of around $100 million in Indian companies, which include Financial Software & Systems, Newgen Imaging Systems, QuEST, LearningMate Solutions, and Claris Lifesciences Carlyle's managing director Wayne W Tosu said on Thursday, "My plan... or rather hope, is that the investment through this platform should be close to $100 million over the next one year," while underlining that the fund would not focus on any particular sector. He also stressed that India and China were the main engines of growth for Carlyle. "No other economy will see the kind of growth that these countries see over the next half a decade," he said to drive home the point. Highlighting the advantages India has over China from a private equity investor's perspective, he said that while Chinese corporates were professional by Chinese standards, Indian corporates were professional by global standards. He also highlighted the fact that since India had a well-developed capital market system, private equity investors could easily buy companies and get them listed. "China on the other hand has a weak capital market, and this forces many private equity funds to look offshore to list the companies in which they invest," he said. But China also had its share of plusses, he said. "Since china, unlike India, does not have a strong public market that can enable them to raise money from the public, they rely on PE investors as a source of funds. "Tosu also said that returns from top performers in China was usually higher compared with their counterparts in India, though returns from India are consistent, on the whole.

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