Brokerage and financial services firm India Infoline has appointed Sunil Kaul, senior director with private equity major Carlyle Group, as a non-executive director of the company. A part of the Asia buyout fund, Kaul is based out of Singapore and focuses on investments in the financial services sector across Asia.
This came soon after Carlyle disclosed that it had raised its holding In India Infoline to 9 per cent through open market purchases last month. VCCircle was the first to report that Carlyle had acquired shares of India Infoline.
It came as one of the rare PE deals in recent times in the brokerage space, although there have been a few investments in the financial services space, such as L&T Finance Holdings and Magma Fincorp. Incidentally, Carlyle also acquired shares in another financial services firm Edelweiss Capital recently as first reported by VCCircle.
Kaul, an IIT Mumbai and IIM Bangalore passout, has more than 20 years of experience in corporate and consumer banking. Before joining Carlyle, he was the president of Citibank, Japan, covering the bank's corporate and retail banking operations. He concurrently served as the chairman of Citi's credit card and consumer finance companies in Japan. He was also a member of Citi's global management committee and global consumer planning group.
In his earlier roles, Kaul served as the head of retail banking for Citi in the Asia-Pacific. He has also held senior positions in business development for Citi's global transaction services based in New York, transaction services head for Citi Japan and global cash business management head for ABN Amro, based out of Holland.
Kaul has been roped in as a director even though Carlyle has not invested directly in India Infoline, picking shares from secondary market. It remains to be seen if Carlyle raises its holding in Edelweiss and is offered a board seat there as well.
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Carlyle Raises Holding In India Infoline To 9%
