Bain Capital special situations fund earmarks $300 million for India

Private equity major Bain Capital is setting aside up to USD 300 million (Rs 2,334 crore) from its USD 2 billion Asia-Pacific focused new special situations fund for investments in India.

The PE major has already pumped in over USD 1.2 billion since its entry into the country over a decade ago.

The global investment company has announced the close of its new USD 2 billion special situations fund for the region on Tuesday, as against the target of USD 1.5 billion.

Sarit Chopra, Managing Director for special situations fund at Bain Capital, told PTI that India is an integral part of Bain's Asia strategy, and they plan to allocate a healthy portion of the special situations funds to the country.

"While we do not have hard country targets, we could possibly invest 15-20 per cent of this special situations funds in India," he said, adding after closing this second Asia fund, Bain will have nearly USD 5 billion capital for investment in Asian special situations.

Bain Capital special situations fund has USD 15 billion in assets under management and has invested USD 28 billion since its founding in 2002. The parent Bain has USD 160 billion in assets under management globally.

The special situations fund provides tailored capital solutions to companies, entrepreneurs, and asset owners in all market cycles. It invests across capital structures in corporate debt and structured capital solutions, distressed assets, non-performing loans, hard asset opportunities, and growth equity.

The fund sees India at the start of an exciting growth cycle as corporate India is poised for a fresh capex cycle, having used cash flows over the past few years to significantly reduce leverage, Chopra said.

The PE major is bullish on the infrastructure space, he said, as it has started to provide benefits and over the past decade, there has been rapid scaling in airports, roads, metro rails among others.

On its India investments, Chopra said, Bain has been investing from its special situations funds here for the better part of a decade now, and has so far invested in the excess of USD 1.2 billion.

With the special situations, Asia Fund II is the largest dedicated special situations fund in the whole of Asia-Pacific, Chopra added.

The second fund has received strong support from institutional investors from around the world, including pension and sovereign wealth funds. It has already completed over 65 transactions totalling over USD 6 billion of investments in the past 15 years in Asia Pacific.