Private equity major Actis has announced the close of an emerging markets infrastructure fund at $750 million. This will be the second infrastructure fund from Actis which will focus mainly on opportunities in power generation and transport.
Actis has a 14 people infrastructure team based out of Singapore, Mumbai and London. It has completed investments in over 20 countries in infrastructure space in the fund's target regions, said a company statement. The fund was initially targeting a final close of $1.25 billion, which it has fallen short of due to a tough fundraising market for PE players.
Paul Fletcher, senior partner at Actis said that the need to build infrastructure including power, roads, ports, airports and bridges in emerging markets is one of the priority areas at his company.
In November 2008, Actis has closed another $2.9 billion private equity fund, Actis Emerging Markets 3 (AEM3) for emerging markets of Africa, China, India, Latin America and south-east Asia. AEM3 had planned to invest $1 billion in India over a period of 3-4 years.
In India, Actis has invested in companies including Nilgiri Group, Nitrex Chemicals, AVTEC, Dalmia Cement, Jyothy Laboratories and Paras Pharma, an FMCG company. It has had several good exits as well. It exited its investment in Punjab Tractors (which was acquired by Mahindra) and UTI Bank. It has also made exits like Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, BPO company Daksh, and Sify.