Private equity firms invest record 8.2 billion dollar in June quarter

New Delhi: Private equity firms invested a record $8.2 billion across 158 deals during the quarter ended June, up 60 percent over the year-ago period, largely driven by big-ticket deals, says a report.

According to the data from deal tracking firm Venture Intelligence, in the June quarter of 2017, there were $5.1 billion PE investments by way of 153 deals.

"Not even five years ago, in 2013, $8 billion was the figure for PE capital that got invested during the entire year. Exceeding that in just one quarter, shows the extent of the confidence bounce back among investors for the Indian PE asset class, as well as in the macro environment," Venture Intelligence CEO Arun Natarajan said.

Following the $8.2 billion PE investments announced in June quarter, the total investments in the first half of 2018 increased to $12.4 billion across 315 deals.

PE deal activity this quarter was largely driven by big-ticket transactions as there were 24 PE investments worth $100 million or more (accounting for almost 83 percent of the total investment value during the period) compared to just 10 such transactions in the June quarter of last year.

The biggest PE investments reported during the June quarter this year included the investment by Partners Group in GlobalLogic for about $960 million, followed by Temasek's contribution of about $760 million to the buyout of L&T Electrical & Automation Business by Schneider Electric.

The IT & ITeS companies accounted for 31 percent of the PE investment, accounting for 83 deals worth $2.6 billion.

Manufacturing companies, led by the L&T E&A Business, attracted 16 per cent of the investment ( $1.3 billion across seven deals), healthcare and life sciences companies (led by ChrysCapital's $350 million in Mankind Pharma) accounted for 12 per cent and Energy companies (led by the Greenko Group investment) for 10 per cent, the report said.

These figures include venture capital investments, but exclude PE investments in real estate.