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The record-breaking rally in Indian equities in recent years has resulted in investors coming into the stock market in hordes. The broadening of the shareholder base in several stocks is a reflection of the appetite for stocks. For instance, five stocks, NHPC, Indian Renewable, IRFC, Yes Bank, and HDFC Bank, collectively added 75 lakh investors during the quarter ending March 2024. NHPC led the pack with a substantial influx of 23 lakh new investors. The government sold a 3.5% stake in NHPC through an offerfor-sale (OFS) in January, and the offer was subscribed 1.4 times. Yes Bank added 11.6 lakh investors, representing nearly 23% of the total additions, while Suzlon Energy saw an addition of 8.4 lakh new investors. 109577091The shareholder base of nine companies including Indian Renewable, NBCC, SJVN, Alok Industries, Tata Tech, Indian Overseas Bank, South Indian Bank, Power Grid Corp, and Asian Paints, crossed one million during the March quarter. Yes Bank, with 61.55 lakh investors, topped the chart with the highest number of investors, followed by Tata Steel and Tata Motors, with 47.17 lakh and 46.17 lakh investors, respectively. Union Bank added 266 foreign portfolio investors in the March quarter while Punjab National Bank and GMR Airport have added 245 and 237 FPIs during this period

NEW DELHI: Non-resident Indians (NRIs) are contributing nearly a fourth to the total residential sales at large developers, up from 7-10% before the pandemic, as top cities continue to see price appreciation and rising demand. According to developers and brokerage firms, the US, Singapore, the UAE, Australia and Saudi Arabia have emerged as big markets for them and they have dedicated teams to help buyers in selecting the projects. According to market sources, the country's biggest developer DLF in its last project Privana South in Gurugram, had achieved 25% share (about ₹1,800 crore) in NRI sales.Overall, during fiscal year 2023-2024, sales from NRI investors surpassed ₹3,400 crore for DLF, which is almost 20% of total sales."The US has outpaced other countries by a significant margin in terms of demand and transaction. Demand has also increased from NRIs based in Singapore, the UAE, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. To provide some context, the average ticket size of investments from NRIs varies from country to country," said Saurabh Garg, co-founder & chief business officer at NoBroker.com.According to the company, during the fiscal 2019-2020, NRIs were estimated to account for approximately 10% of the total investments in the Indian real estate market. However, in the subsequent years, this figure has seen an upward trajectory."We have received a robust response, particularly from regions like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, London, Singapore, Hong Kong and the US with significant inquiries and investments. NRIs have played a pivotal role, contributing nearly 20% to our growth," said Amar Sarin, MD and CEO of TARC Ltd.NoBroker has closed major deals of ₹2 crore from the US and six deals of over ₹4 crore. In some cases, buyers are willing to come back to India because of the job market."The residential segment in real estate has seen higher levels of interest from NRIs and resultant increase in sales from this segment. Global geopolitical realities combined with post-pandemic consumer preferences has created a strong propensity to own a house back home," said Kalyan Chakrabarti, CEO, Emaar India. A recent survey by India Sotheby's International Realty indicated that a larger number of high net-worth individuals (HNIs), many of them NRIs, are planning to purchase luxury real estate in the country in the next two years. NRIs see this as a good time to invest in large properties back home. The appreciation of the dollar against the Indian rupee is making it easier for NRIs to invest in homes in India. The share of NRIs in local residential real estate has more than doubled after the pandemic.

Kedaara Capital closed its $1.73 billion fund, Kedaara IV, the largest fund raised by an India private equity fund, said industry executives in the know. This will be its fourth fund in 12 years and was raised in just 4 months beginning last December and would even surpass Chrys Cap’s $1.3 billion Fund IX raised in 2023. It also comes at a time when several other local and global funds are struggling with fresh commitments from their investors to raise new pools of capital after boom years of fundraising.About 85% of Kedaara’s new fund was raised from existing backers who are common either in fund three or in at least one of the previous funds. They include the 3 of the largest Canadian pension funds --- CPPIB, CDPQ and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP). OTPP was also the anchor investor in the first fund. Other common backers from fund three include German insurer Allianz and fund of funds HarbourVest and Asia Alternatives among others.With new Asian, especially Japanese institutions and Middle Eastern names coming on board, Kedaara chose to diversify the profile of sponsors or limited partners both geographically as well as the types of money that participated --- a wider pool of family offices, endowments and wealth clients. They also restricted that no single individual investor got allocated more than 6% of the fund, said fund executives. 109572751Split geographically, a majority -- 60% of the fund or around a $1 billion was raised from North American investors (Canada, US, Mexico) including endowments like University of Minnesota, family offices and select US state pension plans and a large life insurer – a first timer. The rest was equally divided amongst European and Asian investors including Belgian investment holding company Sofina, and Saudi origin Olayan Group. Even Japanese banks and insurers also joined for the first time. Kedaara, founded in 2011 by former Temasek and General Atlantic executives, Manish Kejriwal, Sunish Sharma and Nishant Sharma, is one of India's best-known and prolific funds. Its three previous funds raised a combined $2.4 billion between 2011 and 2021 which was invested in 27 Indian companies.“Given the global challenges (lack of distributions) and how the denominator effect has impacted many LPs, we thought some might drop out and the fund raise would take a better part of the 2024 calendar year, but we had an almost 100% subscription rate,” said Manish Kejriwal, Founder & Managing Partner, Kedaara Capital. The latest fund will be 57% higher than the last fund raised 3 years ago.The maiden $540 milion maiden fund generated around 40% dollar IRR with 7 of the 9 portfolio companies being fully exited. Two -- Aavas Financiers a home finance company and Spandana -- have already been IPOed and some money taken off the table but with Kedara being the controlling shareholder, it expects full divestments in the coming 24 months.Others like Manjushree, a packaging company that was sold to Advent, Bill Forge sold to Spanish automotive giant CIE and Parkson’s Packaging sold to another PE peer Warburg Pincus. AU Finance, Manyavaar, the flagship brand of Vedaant Fashion,Vijaya Diagnostics, Mahindra Logistics also got listed through and subsequently fully divested.The 2nd $800 million fund and third $1.1 billion fund raised in 2017 and 2021 respectively included the buyout of Vishal Megamart where Kedaara partnered with Partners Group to buy the value retailer from TPG which is also poised for an IPO later this year. Other control investments included the recent Dairy Day Ice Cream, Gavs Technologies and ASG Eye Hospitals where GA also co-invested. Last year, the eye care chain took operational control of Vasan Eye Care following a transfer of ownership.Minority investments from these two funds include Avanse Financial Services, an educational loan company, Lenskart, Care Health Insurance, a subsidiary of Religare Finvest. Portfolio companies from these two funds have improved operationally post Covid and are expected to generate similar returns over their fund lives, the company executives added. Like the earlier funds, the focus of the new fund will also be on control and minority investment in the chosen sectors and themes. In the past Kedaara has predominantly sourced deals in the financial services, consumer and consumer tech sector and to a lesser extent technology services like SAAS as well as pharma and healthcare services like diagnostic chains.Amidst heightened geopolitical risks, China is seeing a flight of quality capital that has been looking at India in a much more proactive way in the last few years. Funds like KKR, Blackstone, EQT (formerly Baring PE Asia EQT) are looking to deploy at least $10 billion in India in the next 5-8 years, their top executives told ET in recent interactions.Last year, India's share of Asia-Pacific private equity deals grew to 23% while China's fell to a nine-year low of 31%, consultancy firm Bain said in a report. However, with marquee global fund names being slow to return cash to their clients and institutional LPs, their ability to make investments by raising new funds have been severely curtailed. This in turn has affected the fund raising capacity of many private equity and venture firms. According to Bloomberg, even Tiger Global Management managed to raise only about $2.2 billion for its latest venture-capital fund, 63% of a $6 billion target and its smallest fundraising drive in roughly a decade. The latest fund is dwarfed by the previous fund that managed a haul of $12.7 billion. Private equity groups globally are now sitting on a record 28,000 unsold companies worth more than $3 trillion, said Bain & Co.

Goldman Sachs has hired two senior bankers in India to cash in on growing dealmaking and investor interest in the South Asian country, three sources with direct knowledge told Reuters on Wednesday. Sunil Khaitan will be Goldman's India head of financing and Kamna Sahni India head of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) in Mumbai, the sources said, adding that the executives will join the bank in the next few months. Both new hires have previously worked at Bank of America. Khaitan was the bank's Southeast Asia head of Equity Capital Markets, while Sahni was a director in India focusing on the healthcare and industrials space. Khaitan and Sahni declined to comment. Goldman declined to comment. Bank of America did not respond to Reuters queries. Goldman earned nearly $16 million in investment banking fees in the region in the first quarter of 2024, according to London Stock Exchange Group Data- ranking fourth. It ranked third in M&As advisory and sixth in equity related deals during the period, the data shows. In recent months it has advised Whirlpool and top Indian airline IndiGo's co-founder on stake sales, in addition to IPOs such as India's biggest e-scooter maker Ola Electric. India is the world's second busiest IPO market this year after the United States, with bankers expecting more activity amid a paucity of deals elsewhere in Asia, Reuters reported last month.

The Reserve Bank of India has called for banks to exercise more vigilance when it comes to preventing the misuse of traditional banking channels in enabling unauthorised trading in foreign exchange.The central bank said in a notification on Wednesday that it has come across instances of unauthorised entities offering foreign exchange trading facilities to individuals with promises of disproportionate and exorbitant returns. Upon investigation, the RBI found that in order to facilitate such unauthorized foreign exchange trading, these entities have engaged local agents who then open accounts at different bank branches to collect money for margins, investments, and charges.“AD Cat-I (authorized dealer category 1) banks are, therefore, advised to be more vigilant and exercise greater caution in this regard. As and when AD Cat-I banks come across an account being used to facilitate unauthorised forex trading, they shall report the same to the Directorate of Enforcement, Government of India, for further action, as deemed fit,” the RBI said.AD Cat-1 banks are those that the RBI gives licenses to for purchasing and selling foreign exchange for certain purposes.The RBI told banks to inform their customers and constituents of the central bank’s latest circular.The banking regulator said that lender’s may advise their customers to deal in foreign exchange only with the RBI’s authorised list of persons and electronic trading platforms. Banks have also been asked to give “wide publicity” to the list of authorised persons and electronic trading platforms available on the RBI’s website.The central bank called attention to section 3 (a) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act of 1999 under which no one shall deal in or transfer foreign exchange or foreign securities to an individual who is not an authorised person, unless given permission by the RBI.The RBI listed out several other regulations pertaining to foreign exchange management as well as press releases and alert lists, which are all aimed at curbing unauthorized activity in foreign exchange trading.