“Attitude Towards M&A Is Changing”: Renuka Ramnath
Business Standard has an interview with Renuka Ramnath, MD and CEO of ICICI Venture, a private equity fund with a total corpus of $810 million. It has invested in ventures like Pantaloon, Shoppers’ Stop and Subhiksha; in Internet firms like Naukri; media/entertainment firms like PVR Cinemas and TV Today; and in biotech with Biocon.
On Attitude Towards M&A
Ramnath says there is an attitude change as far as M&A is concerned. Now people are willing to sell or buy on the basis of what would be the opportunity loss if they do not do an M&A. “Today, nobody’s saying ‘this is profit-making, so I won’t sell, or this is loss-making, so I’ll sell it’,” say Ramnath. Indian promoters are saying let me own fewer companies and have larger market shares and value, rather than be a marginal player.
New funds
They are starting a small cap fund of around Rs 500 crore to begin with, a fund-of-funds, and a mezzanine fund. They are also looking at investing in infrastructure projects, but are not creating a separate fund.
[More in Business Standard]
