Riding on back of large deals, private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investments in India rose 79 per cent to $4.4 billion in April, compared with the same month a year ago.
The exits during the reporting period stood at $1.6 billion, on par with that of comparable period last year.
Open market exits in April were highest since November 2017 in value terms, according to report by EY.
“The month has been strong for PE/VC investments. Although lower than the record highs seen in March, it is the third best for PE/VC investments in the past 12 months. As projected earlier in January, infrastructure and real estate sectors continue to see strong PE/VC interest,” Vivek Soni, Partner and National Leader Private Equity Services at EY said.
“PE/VC investments in infrastructure in the period January-April 2019 add up to $3.7 billion. In just four months, 2019 has surpassed the previous annual high seen in 2007. With eight more months to go and some large deals in the pipeline, we project 2019 to be a landmark year for PE/VC investments in the Indian Infrastructure sector,” he added.
PE/VC investments during the month rose on the back of large deals.
However, when compared with March 2019, they declined by 41 per cent.
The number of deals announced in April this year were the highest ever for any month — 36 per cent higher compared with the same period of last year and 11 per cent higher compared with March — the report said.
Large deals
There were 11 large deals (deals of value more than $100 million) totalling $2.9 billion in April 2019, compared with eight large deals worth $1.9 billion in April 2018. ADIA and NIIF’s $929-million investment in GVK’s airport subsidiary for a 49 per cent stake was the largest deal during the month.
This was followed by Baring Asia’s acquisition of a 30 per cent stake in NIIT Technologies for $381 million, which could further increase depending on response to the open offer, it added.
From a sectoral point of view, infrastructure topped for the second consecutive month with $1 billion in investments on account of the ADIA, NIIF-GVK deal. As a result, 2019 has emerged as the best year for investments in the infrastructure sector with $3.7 billion invested so far, 64 per cent higher than the previous high recorded in 2007.
This was followed by financial services which recorded $746 million in investments.