Quadria Capital to fully deploy $300 million fund by March-end
Firm is in the process of closing four deals in South-East Asia, says co-founder Amit Varma
Mumbai: Private equity (PE) fund Quadria Capital is in advanced talks to invest in at least four companies by the end of March, marking the full deployment of its $300 million South and South-East Asia focused fund, a senior executive said.
“We are in the process of closing out four deals, which includes one deal each in Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. We might end up doing one more deal in the Philippines," said Amit Varma, co-founder and managing partner at Quadria Capital. The firm is also looking at closing another deal in India, he added.
Quadria Capital has so far invested in 15 companies across six countries in the region, through three private equity funds. Quadria was founded in 2010 by Varma and Abrar Mir. Both Varma and Mir held senior positions in Religare Group businesses before starting Quadria.
While the fund has a committed capital pool of $300 million, it also has an additional $200 million of co-investment commitments from its limited partners. Limited partners (LPs) are investors in a private equity fund.
The firm has till date deployed about 50-60% of its capital.
“We are a 10-member investment team out of which four are based out of Mumbai office and four are based out of Singapore office, which is also reflection of how the fund is being spent. Sixty percent of the fund will go into Southeast Asia and remaining 40% will go into South Asia," said Varma.
So far, the healthcare focused private equity firm has made four investments from its latest fund—three in India and one in Indonesia. Quadria’s investments in India include—Concord Biotech Ltd, a maker of fermentation-based niche biopharma active pharmaceutical ingredients; Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, a gastric sciences hospital in Hyderabad; Medica Hospitals, a network of hospitals across east India.
Its lone investment in Southeast Asia is in Indonesia’s Soho Global Health, a pharmaceutical and healthcare corporation.
Quadria has no immediate plans to raise another fund.
“We plan to completely deploy in 2017, then take a year to ensure that we are monitoring the portfolio companies and a year after that we would look at the second fund. It will be prudent to spend time growing these companies," he said.
Quadria’s previous fund - a $700 million Asia-focused healthcare fund—raised from three limited partners in 2010 was deployed and returned in a span of two years.
The PE firm also manages the India Build-Out Fund (IBOF), a healthcare and education-focused fund, which it acquired from Milestone Religare in 2013. Varma has been associated with the fund since its inception as part of the Religare Group.
The PE firm is in the process of completely exiting IBOF, Varma said.
“We have two assets left in this fund, we are working on divesting them. By mid of next year we should be closing that fund. Once we have completely exited the fund, we will look at expanding the platform by raising another fund," he said.
IBOF had raised around Rs430 crore from domestic investors. It invested in companies such as Kota-based education company Resonance Eduventures Ltd and Hyderabad-based Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences Ltd.
Last month, Mint reported that PE investor KKR and Co. Lp is in the final stages of discussions to invest around Rs700 crore in coaching firm Resonance Eduventures Ltd. The company plans to use the funds to buy back shares from existing investors CLSA Capital Partners and IBOF, Mint reported.
The second fund being planned under the IBOF platform will be a larger fund and Quadria will also approach overseas limited partners to invest in the fund, said Varma.
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