Mumbai: The government’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) is in talks with private equity firm Everstone Group for a tie-up to manage its Green Growth Equity Fund (GGEF), said two people aware of the development.
GGEF, which will invest in renewable energy assets, is a joint venture between NIIF and the UK government. NIIF, an institution sponsored by the government of India, is a collaborative investment platform for international and Indian investors.
“NIIF has been involved in talks with Everstone Group for a tie-up to manage the green fund. The corpus of the fund is expected to be in the range of $500 million to $1 billion. NIIF and the UK government will commit capital for the fund and, if the talks are successful, Everstone will act as the general partner to the fund and will find investment opportunities for the fund,” said one of the persons cited above, requesting anonymity as he is not authorized to talk to reporters.
The fund is also likely to raise third party capital in addition to the commitment by NIIF and the UK government, he added.
Everstone Group declined to comment on the development.
“At this point of time we will not like to comment,” said a spokesperson for NIIF, in an email response to Mint’s queries.
The government had set up the Rs40,000 crore NIIF in 2015 as an investment vehicle for funding commercially viable greenfield, brownfield and stalled projects. The Indian government is investing 49% and the rest of the corpus is to be raised from third-party investors such as sovereign wealth funds, insurance and pension funds, endowments, etc.
In October, NIIF announced that it had signed an investment agreement worth $1 billion with a wholly-owned unit of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). As part of the agreement, ADIA will become the first institutional investor in NIIF’s Master Fund and a shareholder in National Investment and Infrastructure Ltd, NIIF’s investment management company.
NIIF’s mandate includes investing in areas such as energy, transportation, housing, water, waste management and other infrastructure-related sectors in India.
The Green Growth Equity Fund will be the second investment platform to be set up by NIIF.
In January, NIIF and Dubai-based port operator DP World announced the creation of an investment platform—Hindustan Infralog—to invest in ports, terminals, transportation and logistics businesses in India. The platform will invest up to $3 billion of equity to acquire assets and develop projects in these sectors.
Hindustan Infralog had in March acquired a 90% stake in logistics company Continental Warehousing Corporation (Nhava Seva) Ltd.
The Everstone Group has assets under management of approximately $4 billion, across private equity and real estate. It has deep experience in investing across sectors through the platform approach. The PE firm along with other investors owns a lending platform—Indostar Capital Finance Ltd—and a joint venture to invest in creation of warehousing capacity—IndoSpace. It also operates a healthcare platform called Everlife that invests in healthcare services businesses in South-East Asia, and a platform to invest in the food and beverage industry in South-East Asia called F&B Asia—which owns licensing rights for brands such as Burger King and others.