IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (IIML), the country’s largest home-grown private equity firm by assets under management (AUM), is planning to launch a fresh fund under the banner of Amsterdam’s Euronext-listed Yatra Capital.
Yatra Capital is an India-focused real estate investment firm, promoted by Saffron Capital Advisors.
Archana Hingorani, chief executive officer and executive director of IIML, told “We are in the process of getting shareholder approval at its upcoming annual general meeting. After the approval comes and depending upon the capital markets, we will be able to raise fresh money for the same.”
IIML would be hoping to be second time lucky.
This involved renaming the existing shares of Yatra Capital as ‘real estate shares’ whereas the new share class was to be christened as ‘infrastructure shares’. This would have developed Yatra Capital as a multi-class fund house with a strategy to invest in Indian infrastructure through debt and equity components, as against its present strategy of primarily equity investments in the Indian realty sector.
Yatra Capital has invested across asset class but its maximum exposure is in the retail segment where it has invested in market city projects of the Mumbai-based realtor Phoenix Mills Ltd. It also has enterprise level stake in Saket Engineers Pvt Ltd and the Phoenix Mills.
After the proposal was submitted, a number of amendments were suggested by the concerned shareholders and the board had later determined that until a final position was reached on the potential amendments to the proposal, it would not be implemented. This happened in spite of the board getting what it called a ‘broad’ investor support.
