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Texas Pacific Group Ventures, the venture and growth capital fund of Texas Pacific Group, is focusing on India. TPG Ventures has appointed former Intel Capital Managing Director Varun Kapur (right) as its Partner in charge of leading investments in India. Kapur will work out of Mumbai and will lead the firm's expansion stage, smaller buyouts and growth-oriented investments in India, with investments up to as much as $75 million.

Kapur was earlier managing the Asia-Pacific region investments for Intel Capital.

TPGV has a corpus of over $1 billion and is focused on growing technology, biotechnology and consumer companies. TPGV's website says that it "utilizes several approaches including venture capital, growth equity, leveraged buyouts (LBO’s) and private investments in public equities (PIPE’s) on a global basis.

TPGV has offices in the US (San Francisco and Menlo Park), China (Hong Kong) and India (Mumbai) and extended coverage through Texas Pacific Group and TPG/Newbridge offices in London, Japan, Korea and Australia.

(Hat tip to Mohit Malik of Anoova Consulting)

Here is a big people move. Amit Chandra, the Country Head of DSP Merrill Lynch, has quit the firm to set up a private equity fund along with former McKinsey chief Rajat Gupta. Chandra is leaving after a 13-year stint at the firm. Hemendra Kothari, chairman of DSPML, will stand in for Chandra (probably till they find a suitable replacement).

Chandra joins other investment banking veterans like his former colleague Rajeev Gupta, Enam's Mahesh Chhabria and IL&FS' Hetal Gandhi to join the private equity industry. Gupta left DSP in early 2005 to join as Managing Director and India head of the buyout firm Carlyle. Chhabria left Enam Financial Consultants to join UK private equity firm 3I, while Gandhi left IL&FS to head Tano Capital.

The talent-starved private quity industry looks for investment banking veterans to man their operations.

Thirty-eight year old Chandra spent all his i-banking career at DSPML. He worked briefly as a consultant in 1993-94, and before his MBA, he worked for Larsen & Toubro, a leading Indian engineering and construction company.

Chandra's main role was to build relationships at the firm, and he has executed some of the largest deals for the firm. Chandra joined the board of DSPML in 2004. He received his MBA in Finance and Strategy from Boston College and holds a Bachelors Degree Engineering (Electrical), from VJTI (University of Bombay).

Private equity fund Apax Partners has appointed Neeraj Bharadwaj as its India MD and Country Head. He will be stationed in Mumbai. Bharadwaj was earlier in New York and was in charge of tech and telecom investments. He has led deals like JAMDAT Mobile, WiderThan and NXP.

Bharadwaj joined Apax in 1999. He has previously with McKinsey & Company, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.

He holds BSc in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Recently, Apax Partners Asia chairman Max Burger-Calderon had announced that they will start investing in India in a big way.

Related:

Apax Partners Looking To Invest In India

UK banking giant HSBC Holdings has hired Sanjay Bajaj as head of its equity capital markets business in India, reports Bloomberg.

Bajaj moves from JM Morgan Stanely, where he worked for 11 years as a member of the equity capital markets team. "Sanjay's appointment reinforces the importance of India for HSBC and our equity capital markets business in the region,'' the bank said in an internal memo procured by Bloomberg.

Bajaj has an uphill task to take HSBC, which ranks 12th among stock underwriters in India, to take it to higher levels in marketshare. Last year, it handled 3 percent of the $9.6 billion raised by companies, including Reliance Petroleum Ltd. and Bank of Baroda. On the other hand, JM Morgan Stanley holds the No. 2 position, with a 10 percent market share. A big win is that HSBC has got the mandate to arrange Hiranandani Construction's $750 million London IPO.

Rajat Gupta has joined the Board of Directors of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Gupta will be an independent director of the corporation, and will serve on the Audit, Compensation and Corporate Governance and Nominating Committees of the Board. With the addition of Gupta, the Goldman Sachs Board has 13 directors, of whom ten are independent directors.

Gupta is Senior Partner of McKinsey & Company. From 1994 to 2003, he was Worldwide Managing Director of McKinsey. That will be a lot of work for Gupta, who is also an advisor to UN Secretary General, and also one who serves on the advisory boards of a host of b-schools like ISB, Kellog, Harvard and Tsinghua University of Beijing.

"Over his 32-year career, Rajat Gupta has been a valued source of counsel to institutions, governments and business leaders around the world," said Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs. "Our shareholders will be fortunate to have his strategic and operational expertise and judgment represented on our board."

Release here.

US investment banking firm Lehman Brothers has started hiring in India. It has appointed Surojit Shome as head of its investment banking division. Shome is currently the MD and corporate banking head, India and sub-continent, for Citigroup. He will now be the MD and head of investment banking, India, for Lehman. He will report to Tarun Jotwani, who was recently appointed chairman and CEO of Lehman's Indian operations, and Kunho Cho, head of investment banking, Asia Pacific. The Economic Times also puts a figure to Shome's compensation package - over $1 million along with bonus.

Lehman is said to be filling in other key positions too - about 70 people for investment banking, corporate finance, fund raising (both equity and debt), derivatives and also investments from the proprietory book. The bank has taken up a 25,000 sq ft office space in Worli in Mumbai.

Lehman already has a senior hand in India in the form of RK Rangan, who currently looks after the BPO operations.

Read - Lehman raises hiring pitch here

Warbur Pincus co-head in India, Pulak Prasad, has quit the venerable private equity firm. According to a report in DNA, there are speculations that the continuing

Sunish Sharma who works at private equity fund General Atlantic's Mumbai office has been promoted as a Principal. Sharma's elevation includes among a series of promotions announced by the US-based private equity fund.

Sharma has been focusing on opportunities in India and the Asia-Pacific region. He serves as a director of broking firm Sharekhan and an alternate director on the Hexaware board. Prior to joining General Atlantic in 2004, Sharma worked for McKinsey & Company, Inc. He is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, where he earned his M.B.A. after graduating with honors from Delhi University. [Release here]

This is good news for Anil Dhirubhai Ambani. Reports suggest that he will be the third richest man in India. Reliance ADA Group has now crossed Rs 1,00,000-crore ($22.2 billion) in market capitalisation, becoming the fifth biggest corporate group in India. So the pecking order is like this: Azim Premji, Mukesh Ambani, and then his younger brother Anil Ambani.

In terms of market cap, there are companies like the Tata Group, Reliance Industries (brothers Mukesh Ambani), NTPC and Infosys, who are ahead of Reliance ADAG. ADAG's rise has been attributed to the market cap of its group company Reliance Communications which was recently listed during a reorganisation.

Reliance Communications' market cap increased to Rs 70,866 crore from about Rs 42,400 crore previously. The other group companies like Reliance Capital has a market cap of Rs 16,221 crore, Reliance Energy at Rs 14,703 crore, Reliance Natural Resources at Rs 2,995 crore and Adlabs Films at Rs 1,364 crore

Bessemer Venture Partners today announced that Anil Sarin has joined the group's office in Mumbai as Director of Public Equities. Sarin has moved from Prudential ICICI Asset Management, where he was the co-head of equities. As Director of Public Equities for Bessemer, he will manage the firm's listed investments and participate in due diligence activities, a release said.

Among Sarin's successful investments at Prudential ICICI were the Deccan Chronicle newspaper company, Subex Systems, and Zenith Infotech, an IT services company. During his tenure, the money he managed grew from less than $30 million in 2004 to more than $800 million in 2006, the release notes.

Prior to joining Prudential ICICI, Sarin was a fund manager for Birla Sun Life specializing in technology. He began his career as an equity research analyst and fund manager at SBI Funds Management. Sarin holds an MBA degree from the Institute of Management and Technology in Ghaziabad, and a Bachelor's in commerce from Delhi University.

Bessemer in India has invested in both listed and unlisted companies, including Rico Auto, Shriram EPC, Sarovar Hotels and Resorts, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, and Anant Raj Industries.

Editor: Wonder if such jobs are available at Carlyle, Blackstone, Chrys Capital or in Citigroup Venture Capital International which generally do a lot of PIPE deals?