MUMBAI: The month of April witnessed the highest number of start-up deals, as private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) deals touched a total of $4.4 billion, according to EY’s Private Equity Monthly Deal Tracker.
A total of 102 deals were announced in April-- the highest ever in any month, of which 66 were start-up deals.
During the period, PE/VC investments jumped 79% to $4.4 billion. Even though the total deal value was 41% lower than the record-high reported in March, the month of April saw the third highest dollar value of deals in the last one year. This was on the back of 11 large deals of over $100 million each, that aggregated to $2.9 billion in April, compared to eight large deals worth $1.9 billion in April 2018.
Most deal activity was seen in the infrastructure sector, which for a second consecutive month, saw investment to the tune of $1 billion on account of the large $929 million. Among these GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd. agreed to offer 49% stake in GVK Airport Holdings Ltd. to Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund. The deal makes this year the best for investments in the infrastructure sector as investment grew 64% to $3.7 billion during January-April 2019, compared to the previous high recorded 12 years ago. Financial services was the second most preferred sector in April with $746 million in investments.
"With eight more months to go and some large deals in the pipeline, we project 2019 to be a landmark year for PE/VC investments in the Indian infrastructure sector," said Vivek Soni, partner and national leader, private equity services, EY.
As REITs (real estate investment trusts) and InVITs (infrastructure investment trusts) find acceptance with large, institutional investors, we project that change in ownership of portfolios of real assets (real estate and infrastructure assets) using structures like REITs/ InVITs will be one of the dominant trends for raising capital by real asset owners / developers in 2019, he added.
The month also saw exits cross the $1 billion mark for the first time in past six months, largely due to a rebound in exits via open market worth $715 million, the highest since November 2017. There were 16 exits in April worth $1.6 billion, almost on par with the year ago period. Exits via strategic sale were second most used route at $555 million.
