Private equity firms invested about $3.3 billion across 97 deals in India in the January-March quarter of 2008, says a study by Venture Intelligence, a research firm. The investment was higher compared to the same quarter a year ago ($2.7 billion from 101 deals) but lower than the preceding quarter, which saw 131 deals worth $5 billion.
The largest investment reported in the first quarter of calendar 2008 was $395 million, raised by Sophia Power Company, a part of the Indiabulls Group, from Lakshmi Mittal-promoted LNM India Ventures and Farallon Capital.
Telecom continued to attract investor interest with KKR and Morgan Stanley investing significant capital into outsourced tower infrastructure firms like Bharti Infratel and TowerVision, respectively.
Other companies that raised $100 million plus rounds during the period included Cairn India, Ballarpur Paper Holdings, travel technology firm InterGlobe Technology Quotient and hospital firm Narayana Hrudayalaya.
?Despite the turmoil in the global financial markets, PE investments during January-March 2008 registered growth over the corresponding period in 2007, thanks to a spurt in deals in the late stage segment which accounted for 60% of the amount invested,? said Arun Natarajan, CEO of Venture Intelligence.