Private equity veteran Abhay Havaldar may be scripting an exit from General Atlantic Partners after spending nearly a decade at the firm.
Multiple sources familiar with the developments at General Atlantic said, Havaldar has been discussing his exit from the fund in the near future even though he denies any such plan.
According to sources close to the development, Mr Havaldar and the GA management had late last year reached a conclusion on his exit. Though he continues to be part of GA’s Mumbai team, the responsibilities were already shared by other senior executives- Ranjit Pandit and Sunish
Sharma, the managing directors at the Mumbai office, said the source. It is not known whether he will join any other organization or will be setting up his own PE fund.
Under his leadership, the fund invested in Patni Computer Services ($100 million in 2002), Hexaware Technologies ($67.6 million in 2006), Infotech Enterprises Ltd, IBS Software Services Pvt Ltd and BPO major Genpact. Its other investments include National Stock Exchange ($115
million) and Jubilant Organosys Ltd ($25 million in 2005). Recently, in its first deal in last three years, GA had participated with a consortium that put $425 million in Asian Genco, a Singapore-based company with power generation assets in India and engineering services
businesses in March 2010. He currently serves as a Director on the board of Jubilant Organosys Ltd. and IBS Software Services (P) Ltd.
When contacted, Pat Hedley, GA spokesperson said, "This information you have is completely false. Mr. Abhay Havaldar is a managing director with General Atlantic and a key member of our Mumbai team." Incidentally, General Atlantic had earlier also denied the exit of Raul Rai, an MD based out of Mumbai.
To a VCCircle query, General Atlantic India managing director Abhay Havaldar said, "This is untrue. I am very much at GA and no plans for anything else."
Abhay Havaldar established General Atlantic's India office in 2002 in Mumbai and leads General Atlantic's South East Asia investment initiatives with a focus on financial services and enterprise
solutions. Prior to GA, Mr. Havaldar started his career with TATA and has held operating management responsibilities at TATA Infotech and HCL Infosystems. Mr. Havaldar has worked as a partner at Draper International and Connect Capital. He is a Charter Member of The Indus
Entrepreneurs (TIE) and a Board member of Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE). Mr. Havaldar holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from the University of Bombay and a Masters in management degree from the Sloan Fellow program at the London Business School.
PE professionals quitting global firms is not a phenomenon these days. Two weeks back, Gul Mukhey, who heads Principal Investments and Private Equity for HSBC (India), put in his papers after his 2.5 years’ tenure with HSBC. Another veteran, PR Srinivsan, also serves a gardening leave after he put in his papers at Citigroup Venture Capital International’s (CVCI). PRS, who resigned as the managing director of CVCI India, serves the leave till August 2010. VCCircle
has reported the exit of JP Morgan's private equity arm managing director Vibhav Panandiker.
Last month, Dinesh Tiwari, an executive director, left JP Morgan to join Renuka Ramnath's Multiples Alternate Asset Management. Last month, Luis Miranda of IDFC Private Equity,
decided to step down from the position of chief executive officer from November 1, 2010. Many senior executives also left the Indian arm of global PE majors either to set up their own funds. The veterans who are in the fundraising process include Harsha Raghavan, former India head of Candover and Rajesh Khanna, who left Warburg Pincus.
