Exclusive: Mumbai based financial services company Edelweiss Capital is learnt to be setting up a private equity fund, and it is understood to have roped in Debi Guha from Government of Singapore Investment Corporation to head up the proposed fund. The size of the proposed fund is not known. Edelweiss nor Guha could not be reached for comments.
Guha is currently a Senior Vice President at GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd, and is based out of Singapore. She was looking after investments in markets like India and Australia. She joined GIC in 1998. Prior to that, Guha was an Assistant Vice President at ICICI Bank looking after project finance and infrastructure finance. Guha, a graduate of Jadavpur University, has done her post graduate diploma in management from IIM Ahmedabad between 1991 and 1993.
Edelweiss Capital’s new PE fund is a result of its split with Blue River Capital, a $100 million fund it had set up in partnership with Shujaat Khan. Khan had partnered with Edelweiss after he quit Ashish Dhawan’s ChrysCapital. Sources told VC Circle that Edelweiss and Blue River has already signed the separation agreement.
Edelweiss Capital is present in investment banking, institutional equities, asset management, wealth management, private client brokerage, insurance broking and wholesale financing. It also recently announced that it has formed Edelweiss Alternate Asset Advisors (EAAA), a distressed assets arm, with an initial target corpus of $200-million, which can be expanded upto $400 million. The firms has also hired Siby Anthony from IDBI Bank to spearhead this initiative.
Edelweiss was founded by Rashesh Shah (formerly with ICICI Bank) and Venkat Ramaswamy. The company was publicly listed last year.