PE deals: Five deals in five months take total tally to $1.34 billion so far in 2023

Warburg Pincus on Monday acquired around 90 percent equity stake in Vistaar Finance, for $250 million, through a combination of primary and secondary shares. Former ICICI Bank executive Avijit Saha, who is also a co-investor alongside Warburg Pincus will be joining the company as chief executive officer (CEO).

The last two years have been unprecedented for PE investors with each year witnessing about $5.6 billion worth of investment. According to data from Grant Thornton Bharat, India attracted PE investments to the tune of $25.3 billion since 2019 with companies from healthcare, energy, IT, and real estate dominating the space.

However, the overall trend over the last few years suggests a slowdown in such deals. While the year 2019 had 27 deals worth $ 9.4 billion, it reduced to 17 deals worth 3.4 billion in 2020. The number further came down to 15 in 2021 and 11 in 2022.

As far as the value of investments is concerned, investments made by three PE firms -- Brookfield Asset Management Inc, British Columbia Investment Management Corp and GIC— for acquiring Reliance Jio lnfratel in 2019 topped the list. The three together had spent as much as $3.7 billion to acquire a 100 percent stake. That was followed by a little over $2 billion invested by Blackstone to acquire 55.3 percent of Mphasis in 2021.

While pharma, healthcare, and biotech had seen as many as 12 deals since the beginning of 2019, Energy and natural resources came close second with 10 such deals. The real estate space occupied the third spot with 10 deals as high-grade rental-generating assets attracted foreign investors in a big way post-pandemic.