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

With Warburg Pincus acquiring a controlling stake in Vistaar Finance, the value of a complete buyout by private equity (PE) firms for the year so far has touched $1.34 billion in 2023.

The latest transaction has taken the number of PE deals for the first five months of the year to five, against six such deals during the same period last year. According to data from Grant Thornton Bharat, the average deal size for the year so far stood at $268 million, against $784 million for the same period last year.

Some of the other key deals in this vein include Advent's purchase of 50.1 percent in Suven Life Sciences from the Jasti family for $770 million and Brookfield Asset Management's purchase of a 51 percent stake in Cleanmax Enviro Energy Solutions for $305 million.

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.