New York-headquartered alternative investment firm Cerberus Capital Management has appointed longtime executive Rahul Sangwan as head of its India business, VCCircle has learnt.
Sangwan, a managing director in Cerberus’ corporate credit team who has spent nearly 15 years with the firm, will relocate to Mumbai and oversee the expansion of its India franchise including investments and operations. He will work alongside Allen Ukritnukun, the firm’s head of international credit and distressed debt.
The appointment comes at a time when global alternative asset managers are scaling up in India’s rapidly growing private credit market, driven by tighter banking regulations, increased infrastructure spending and rising demand for bespoke financing.
Sangwan has worked across Cerberus’ international credit business since joining the firm in 2012, leading investments across Europe, the US and India in areas including secondary debt, non-performing loans, real assets and private credit. People familiar with the firm’s India operations said he had increasingly taken on a larger role in India-focussed transactions over the past few years as Cerberus expanded beyond opportunistic distressed investing into broader structured credit and multi-strategy deals.
Before joining Cerberus, Sangwan worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in New York. He graduated from Dartmouth College and later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, according to the firm’s website.
India operations
His elevation also follows leadership changes within Cerberus’ Asia business. Indranil Ghosh, who helped establish the firm’s India platform after joining from AION Capital in 2019, exited recently to join Apollo Global Management, according to media reports. Cerberus has since been consolidating its India operations as competition intensifies among global private credit firms chasing large structured financing mandates.
Cerberus entered India in 2019, setting up a Mumbai office, to pursue opportunities after the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code opened the door for foreign distressed investors. Since then, the firm has steadily broadened its strategy in India beyond bad-loan acquisitions into real estate-backed financing, infrastructure-linked opportunities and special situations lending.
The firm was among the lenders in the Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s multi-billion-dollar refinancing exercises, one of the largest private credit transactions in India in recent years. Cerberus has also backed financing platforms targeting stressed and stalled residential projects. In 2021, HDFC Capital entered into a partnership with Cerberus to fund last-mile financing for housing developments impacted by liquidity stress.
Globally, Cerberus manages about $70 billion across credit, private equity and real estate strategies. Its corporate credit platform has deployed more than $36 billion across distressed debt, opportunistic credit and special situations investments, according to company disclosures.
India has become an increasingly important market for global private credit firms including Apollo, Oaktree Capital, Davidson Kempner, Farallon Capital and Ares Management, which have expanded local teams to capitalise on funding gaps left by banks and public debt markets. Industry executives estimate India’s private credit market has grown to more than $20 billion, with deal sizes becoming larger and more complex over the past three years.
Cerberus said its India operations now include more than 65 professionals supporting both investment and global operations from Mumbai.