IFC To Invest In Aloe Environment Fund And Samara Capital
International Finance Corporation (IFC), the multilateral investment arm of the World Bank, has decided to invest in two India focussed private equity funds - Aloe Environment Fund 2 (Aloe 2) and Samara Capital Partners Fund I Ltd (Samara Capital).
IFC has proposed to invest €15 million ($20 million) in Aloe (see IFC’s project summary), an independent private equity firm founded in 2004 by Vivek Tandon and Jean-Pascal Tranié, former executives at Viventures Partners. Aloe 2 is sponsored by Leading Environmental Solutions and Services Ltd (LESS), a strategic fund of funds focused on investing in environmental companies in India and China. Aloe 2 has target fund size of €100 million ($134 million) to €150 million ($200 million).
IFC is also investing in Samara Capital, a fund founded by three former Citigroup investment professionals Sumeet Narang, Gautam Gode and Radhika Dubash. (See IFC’s project summary.) Samara Capital has a target size of about $125 million, while IFC’s proposal is to invest up to $10 million.
Samara Capital will be registered in Mauritius, and will have a local advisory team based in India. Samara will invest in small and medium-sized enterprises in India. It will invest in deals of under $20 million, and will be actively involved in the investees’ operational and financial management in order to accelerate their growth and development. The fund will target companies with strong growth potential in industries such as financial services, media and telecom, secondary infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, and information technology. (Also see The Financial Express)
