Hyderabad’s engineering and construction firms continue to attract private equity investments. 3i India Infrastructure Fund, an investment fund established by 3i Group, has invested $101 million for a minority stake in Soma Enterprise Ltd, a city based engineering and construction firm. Company director Ankineedu Maganti and his family will maintain a large majority stake in the business, a release said.
Previously, Hyderabad’s infrastructure construction companies like Ramky Infrastructure ($28 million from Sabre-Abraaj, IL&FS Investment), Ramky Group ($100 million from Lehman Brothers), KVK Energy & Infrastructure ($26 million by Old Lane) and Indu Projects ($33 million from Citigroup Venture Capital) have landed private equity funding.
Established in 1997, Soma is a large infrastructure developer in India with an order book of over $1.6 billion. It is a leading player in the infrastructure construction industry, specialising in multi-disciplinary engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts across segments such as roads, irrigation, hydropower and urban infrastructure. The company is increasingly concentrating on developing build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects.
Soma is the second investment of 3i India Infrastructure, which had its first close in September with $500 million in commitments from cornerstone investors 3i and 3i Infrastructure Ltd. The fund’s first investment was $227 million for a minority stake in Adani Power, which is developing a 2,640 MW coal-based thermal power plant in Gujarat. 3i India Infrastructure Fund was set up by 3i Group in April. The firm has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Indian government’s India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL) to share their pipelines of investment opportunities with one another. The fund is targeting $1 billion in total commitments.

Posted on 11/30/07, 12:03 AM
in: Deals, Private Equity
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