Carlyle has appointed Amit Jain as managing director and co-head of the its India investment advisory team. He will lead Carlyle's investment advisory team in India and oversee the team’s investment strategy across a broad range of sectors, the firm said on Monday.
Jain will work along with Neeraj Bharadwaj who will continue his role as the co-head for Carlyle India investment advisory team. Bharadwaj -- along with Carlyle’s head of healthcare in China Ling Yang -- has been appointed as co-head of healthcare for Carlyle in Asia.
Jain’s appointment comes at a time when Carlyle is doubling down in the region, viewing India as one of the most attractive investment destinations globally. The PE firm has invested more than $5.5 billion in India across 44 investments to date, the firm said.
“His (Amit Jain) appointment underscores our commitment to further build-out our local team at a time of sustained economic growth and the emergence of exciting new technologies and derivative business opportunities,” Greg Zeluck, Managing Director and the Co-Head of Carlyle Asia, said.
Jain, who holds an MBA from the Indian School of Business and a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, will will be based in Mumbai. He joins Carlyle after 10 years at the BlackstoneGroup in India, where he was most recently the Senior Managing Director in the firm's PrivateEquity Group.
At Blackstone, Jain was involved in investments across consumer, healthcare, auto, telecom, packaging and financial services. He has served on the boards of Essel Propack, Aakash Educational Services, Aakash Edutech, SONA BLW Precision Forgings, Comstar Automotive Technologies, FINO Payments Bank and CMS Infosystems.
“I am delighted to be joining Carlyle, which has a stellar reputation for helping Indian businesses grow and thrive both at home and overseas. Carlyle has exciting ambitions for further investment in India as well as globally, and I look forward to contributing to the firm’s continued development,” Jain said.
In India, Carlyle has been on the path to deploy significant capital this year. Its $3 billion bid to acquire technology firm Hexaware got approved by the Competition Commission of India last month.
It has made varied bets in healthcare and pharmaceuticals segments over the last two years. In 2020, Carlyle acquired a majority stake in SeQuent Scientific, which makes APIs for animals, and a 20% stake in Piramal Pharma in what was its biggest healthcare deal in India.
It is also building out an applications programming interface (API) platform in India with Viyash Life Sciences Pvt Ltd. Carlyle backed Viyash also acquired Symed Labs Pvt Ltd earlier this year.
Carlyle also picked up a minority stake in healthcare enterprise solutions provider Indegene.
However, last month, Carlyle’s plan to acquire an additional stake in PNB Housing Finance fell through.