BlackSoil exits last investment from maiden fund

By Swet Sarika

  • 23 Mar 2021
Credit: VCCircle

Asset management firm BlackSoil Capital has exited its last investment from BlackSoil Realty Trust, the platform’s first alternative investment fund (AIF), the company said in a statement.

The maiden fund, which raised Rs 160 crore five years ago, was mandated to focus on the residential sector in top regions like Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and Bengaluru by partnering developers of midsized projects.

The fund, which had made seven investments, had been raised primarily from high net-worth individuals (HNIs) and family offices.

The fund has an average gross internal rate of return (IRR) of 19%.

The latest exit has come from a project of Rajesh Constructions, a real estate developer that has operations in the Mumbai market. The investment was in a project located in Borivali, Mumba that had got delayed due to reasons like anti-dumping imposition, IL&FS fiasco, slowdown in real estate and pandemic.

Apart from BlackSoil Realty Trust, BlackSoil manages two other AIFs including Walton Street BlackSoil Real Estate Debt Fund which invests in affordable and mid-market residential segments across top metros of India. The fund has so far deployed 90% of the Rs 320 crore corpus raised in 2018 across eight deals.

It has even clocked partial exits from investments through project cash flows.

The other AIF is the Rs 126 crore BlackSoil India Credit Fund.

BlackSoil is a sector-agnostic alternative credit platform that has deployed over Rs 1,900 crore in the last five years across 100 plus transactions, 40% in the residential real estate segment.

BlackSoil Group ventured into the lending space by acquiring a non-bank lender in 2016 and setting up a credit platform. The lender has deployed Rs 1,500 crore across 100 plus transactions so far, with over 70% towards secured credit transactions.