Carlyle group [One of the Bush Family Businesses] set to invest $125 mn in India
The Carlyle Group plans to invest $125 million in India over the next 3-5 years. The venerable private equity investor has floated a $300-million Asia-focused fund, of which around 40% will be invested in India-driven companies.
Carlyle has till date invested around $25 million in India in various ventures like Usha Communications, SSKI, which owns the portal Sharekhan, and Educom.
The $125 million investment will exclusively be in IT and IT-enabled services. Said a Carlyle official, "It's not that we are not interested in other sectors, but the mandate of our fund has a clear focus on technology."
The official also added that the fund would also be cautious about investing in the telecom sector, though it didn't rule out that option.
"Though fewer deals were signed this year, they were big in size," said one VC.
VCs also argued that while most venture capital investment was coming in areas like IT and IT-enabled services, the potential of sectors like retail and media entertainment for attracting VC funding was quite high too. Said Reliance Entertainment's Amit Khanna, "Around $200 million worth of private equity have already been invested in the media and entertainment sector, and $100 million of such funding is expected over the next couple of years." This year's hit movie Saathiya was produced by a VC-funded company called Kaleidoscope Entertainment.
Venture capitalists also felt that given the current economic scenario, it was deemed safer to invest in mature companies in expansion stage, rather than startups. While the rate of return on startups was often 10 times of investment, that of expansion stage companies were around 5 times of investment. However, mature companies obviously had a lower risk profile.
As far as Carlyle is concerned, the group had last year done the final closure of a $600 million venture capital fund, Carlyle Venture Partners II LP in the US. The fund was the largest venture capital fund raised in 2002, according to VentureWire, an industry tracker. Earlier in the US, Prism Venture Partners raised a fund of $421 million and Centennial Ventures of Denver closed a $341 million fund. Carlyle group first raised $210 million in 1997.
Why doesn't it suprise me to find out the Bush family will make money from "outsourced" jobs. They always profit when the little guy gets the shaft.
Posted by: Edd at September 15, 2004 02:23 PMIs it a crime to invest? Bush's family is investing in India? Who isn't? Your investments are suppose to be geared toward making money. If you want to make money in the next ten to twenty years, India and China are the places to be. Bush's family is not barred from making investments. Most of you have investments in India. If you have a mutual fund or a 401K, look at the stocks that they hold. If they hold a stock in a company that is investing in India, then you are investing in India. If you buy products made in India, then you are investing in India. What is the issue?
If any of you have not figured it out, here it is in a nutshell. India has 1.2 billion people, China has 1.2 billion people, the land between those to countries is anothe billion people. More than half the worlds population lies in that region. They are becoming consumers. Where do you think growth is coming from? And where should you be invested?
Posted by: tomocius at September 16, 2004 07:29 AMwill anybody stop the carlyle group?
a website tries to : Stop Carlyle!
http://isuisse.ifrance.com/stopcarlyle/enindex.htm
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