The Carlyle Group, the Washington-headquartered private equity firm, has reaffirmed its commitment to Asia by raising a third venture capital fund for the region.
MUMBAI: The Carlyle Group, the Washington-headquartered private equity firm, has reaffirmed its commitment to Asia by raising a third venture capital fund for the region.
Called the Carlyle Asia Growth Partners Fund, it has already collected $450 million under the fund, which is expected to close in early April.
Meanwhile, Carlyle Asia Growth Capital, a division of the Carlyle Group which invests primarily for significant minority stakes in growth stage companies in Asia, announced that it has invested $20 million in 5-year-old Claris Lifesciences, an unlisted pharmaceutical company that manufactures and markets products for treating critical illnesses. It takes the group’s total capital invested in India to little under $100 million, according to Shankar Narayanan, managing director and head of Carlyle’s India Growth Capital team.
This is the Carlyle Group’s fifth private equity investment in an Indian company, through its division, Carlyle Asia Growth Capital.
Though Korea and Japan are other markets that have been on Carlyle’s radar, China and India make up about 70% of its total capital invested through venture and growth capital funds, said Narayanan.
Talking about prospects in India, he said, “We are focused on two themes - outsourcing and domestic manufacturing.”
The former includes companies in the information technology, information technology enabled services, clinical research, generic pharma and auto ancillary space, while the latter includes sectors like cement and construction.
“Carlyle acts as a catalyst in transforming fast-growing, well-run companies with a good potential to grow profits, into world-class players. We typically invest for a 3-5 year period,” added Narayanan.
The other Indian companies in which Carlyle has invested, are Financial Software & Systems (November 2000), Newgen Imaging Systems (October 2004), QuEST (May 2003) and Worldzen Holdings (February 2003). These investments were made through Carlyle’s first two funds, the Carlyle Asia Venture Partners 1 and the Carlyle Asia Venture Partners 2. Narayanan indicated that Carlyle will exit one of these in the near future, and that it is helping another company buy a firm in one of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries.
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