Homegrown financial services firm Avendus Capital has announced the appointment of Gaurav Sood to lead its foray into Equity Capital Markets.
Last month, Avendus Capital decided to buy Spark Capital’s institutional equities arm in a bid to expand its offerings by including institutional equities business.
Sood is a specialist in Indian capital markets and has executed marquee transactions during his career spanning 18 years. He has overseen some of India’s largest and differentiated IPOs, marquee secondary market blocks, OFS transactions, QIPs and follow ons, the company said in a statement.
Prior to the appointment at Avendus, Sood was co-head of the ECM business at ICICI Securities, and has also worked with institutions like Kotak Securities, ICICI Bank and Morgan Stanley.
“…I look forward to working with the team, leveraging its leadership position and strong relationships in private capital markets to build a leading Equity Capital Markets franchise,” Sood said.
Gaurav Deepak, Co-founder and CEO, Avendus Capital said, “In continuation of our ambition to build a strong leadership team for our new Public Markets business, I am delighted to welcome Gaurav to the Avendus family and thrilled that a person of his calibre will lead this mission for us. Under Gaurav’s dynamic leadership, I am confident we will be able to build a market-leading ECM practice.”
Mumbai-based Avendus Capital currently offers services such as investment banking, wealth management, credit solutions and asset management and added equity capital markets vertical as its latest offering.
KKR & Co bought a controlling stake in Avendus in 2015, a move that was seen to help the domestic firm scale its services in wealth management and private equity, besides foraying into the NBFC space.
Founded in Mumbai in 1999, Avendus is present in 10 cities across India, the UK, the US and Singapore.
Presently, it handles $6.25 billion assets under management (AUM) under its wealth management ($5.5 billion AUM), assets management and credit solutions (excluding loan book) business.
