UK-based private equity fund Englefield Capital is shutting its Indian opertations, VCCircle has learned. The private equity firm, which set up shop in the country last year with two partners, has also disbanded its local team. The London-headquartered fund had hired Dinesh Vaswani, who was working as a managing director with Temasek Holding, as co-head of India operations. The other co-head was Jerome Mourgue d’Algue, who moved from Englefield’s London office.
When contacted by VCCircle, Jerome Mourgue d’Algue, Co-Head and a Partner of the fund, confirmed the development. He, however, refused to divulge any more details. Jerome d’Algue's profile on the website has now been altered on Englefield website from Partner and Joint Head of India to just Partner. The profile of India team (which included Dinesh Vaswani's too) has also been removed from the website.
Vaswani, Englefield's India co-head, has also served stints with venture capital firms Bessemer Venture Partners and Walden International. It is not known where he is headed.
Also it's still not known if Englefield had managed to close any deals in India. Another India team member was Shaurya Arora, who joined the company from Lehman Bothers' private equity arm.
Englefield Capital is an independent private equity firm with committed equity funds of $2.73 billion making investments in buyout and development capital. The fund was set up in 2002 by Dominic Shorthouse, who was a managing director of Warburg Pincus in London.
It targets equity investments of $46.5 million to $233 million in mid-market companies across Europe, usually with enterprise values in excess of $116 million.
Englefield may be one of the first private funds to wind up its operations in India after the economic crisis has struck. Another private equity firm closing India operations is Australian investment firm Babcock & Brown, which had been ordered by its creditors to sell all its assets in order to repay debt.
Candover, another UK-based private equity fund, is looking to raise an Asia or/and India-focused fund in order to self-finance its operations. Otherwise they will have to cease India operations.
Some private equity firms have also scaled back their Asia presence. US buyout shop Cerberus Capital Management is reportedly shutting down its Hong Kong office as 3i Group already closed its Hong Kong and Shanghai offices. Carlyle also sacked seven people from its Asia Leveraged team. TPG has also had restructured with its Moscow office chief Stephen Peel becoming its new Asia head.
