Ex-Blackstone exec looks to recreate hits
PremiumCyriac, who quit Blackstone in 2017, has become known for turning around struggling firms and creating huge returns
Mathew Cyriac, the former co-head of Blackstone India Private Equity, is looking to make another killing in the IPO market with his recent investment in defence and aerospace engineering firm Data Patterns, three people aware of the development said.
Cyriac’s investment in Data Patterns follows the successful IPO of MTAR Technologies Ltd, which is also in a similar line of business. MTAR went public in March, saw its IPO being oversubscribed 200 times, the highest subscription ever for an IPO of more than ₹200 crore in size. The stock then went on to list on the exchanges with an 88.2% gain on the first day of trading.
Cyriac, who quit Blackstone in 2017, has since then become known for turning around struggling companies and in the process creating multi-bagger returns.
After quitting Blackstone, Cyriac, who is not managing a fund now, but investing his own capital along with his close friends and associates, including K. Madhavan, the president of Disney and Star India, acquired his former employer’s stakes in textile firm Gokaldas Exports and MTAR Technologies in 2017, with Blackstone exiting these companies with big haircuts.
Since then, both the companies have seen a strong revival in their fortunes. In MTAR, Cyriac managed to make a 15x return on his investment in four years. Gokaldas, where he acquired shares from Blackstone and public shareholders at ₹63.25 apiece, is now trading at ₹185.
Industry insiders say Cyriac is aiming to make substantially handsome returns from his investment in Data Patterns.
“Data Patterns is working on an IPO that will see the company raise around ₹600 crore, through primary and secondary share sale. They are looking at a valuation of around ₹2,400-2,500 crore. This is manifold the value that Cyriac invested in the company just a few months ago. Given the MTAR success, this company too is expected to do well in the IPO market as investors will be keen to invest in a similar company, which is also backed by Cyriac. He has a 20% stake in the company," said the first person cited above.
“Data Patterns is on the same track as MTAR. Both of them are strong and unique companies with no real head-to-head competition in the spaces that they operate in," he added.
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Founded in 1985, Data Patterns has grown into a reputed Indian defence and aerospace electronic systems company with 100% in-house design and manufacturing capability. Data Patterns has designed products that are used in land platforms, naval surface and underwater platforms, airborne and space platforms. The company has over 700 employees with 450 engineers in design and engineering.
“Since he is not running a large global fund with billions in AUM, he is investing smaller cheques in these firms and thus looking for very large outcomes on these investments. From the looks of it, Data Patterns is likely to turn out to be another big success for him," said the second person cited above, requesting anonymity.
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