Private equity firm Carlyle group LP has fully exited its investment in housing finance company Repco Home Finance for Rs 471.5 crore ($78.4 million) via open market transaction on Thursday. This exit marks a 9x return for the PE investor over a horizon of almost seven years.
Carlyle sold 1.1 crore shares or 17.7 per cent stake at a price of Rs 427.56 per piece.
The PE firm had invested a little over Rs 108 crore in Repco Home Finance between 2007 and 2009, through primary and secondary purchase of 49.7 per cent stake. The PE firm sold a little over 23 per cent stake in secondary transactions to Wolfensohn Capital Partners and Creador.
It also sold 2.78 per cent stake to Antique Broking and Shardul Securities besides certain HNIs, raking in a total of approximately Rs 190 crore through these sales.
With the latest share sale it has pocketed over Rs 661 crore in total, not counting dividends, giving a lifetime return of over 6x.
Repco Home Finance was listed on the stock exchanges in April last year.
Recently, Wolfensohn Capital Partners exited Repco completely by selling 5.5 per cent stake for Rs 112 crore.
Repco Home Finance posted a net profit of Rs 110 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2014 against Rs 80 crore the previous year. It posted annual net sales of Rs 534 crore against Rs 406 crore in FY13. The company has 91 branches and 32 satellite centres in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, West Bengal and Puducherry.
Repco Home Finance stock closed at Rs 477.3 per share, down 0.01 per cent on the BSE in a flat Mumbai market on Thursday.
This is the fourth part or full exit activity for Carlyle this year. It had sold its stake in dairy firm Tirumala and network solutions firm Cyberoam. It had also part exited Claris Lifesciences through a corporate buyback offer.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
