VCCircle

One of the top global buyout funds Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) is considering setting up an India office, The Times of India reports, quoting a source. "A few law firms, including us, have been sounded off by KKR to help set up operations in India," TOI quotes the head of Delhi-based law firm as saying.
If KKR indeed sets up an India office, it will put the country on the top on global private equity map. Since it was founded in 1976, KKR has done some 150 transactions with an aggregate enterprise value of over $318 billion. As of June 30, 2007, KKR’s equity investments were valued at over $78 billion on over $31 billion of invested capital, a multiple of 2.5 times, the website claims.
KKR has done only one deal in India, though. It bought out Flextronics Software, the software business of Flextronics International, for $900 million last year. It was the first leveraged buyout deal in India. KKR interestingly did this deal out of its international offices. The firm has six offices worldwide - New York, Menlo Park, Paris, London, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Will KKR get to do their kind of deals in India? Their single deal runs into multi-billion dollars. There are not many such deals in India, unless many large family-run businesses sell out. That said, Blackstone did a few multi-million dollar deals this year such as Intelenet ($109 million), Ushodaya Enterprises ($275 million), Nagarjuna Construction ($150 million) and Gokaldas Exports ($165 million). Carlyle put in an equity of $416 million in HDFC, while Temasek put in $2 billion in Bharti Airtel. Probably, this is just the beginning.