Homegrown private equity firm True North Managers LLP is preparing ground for the launch of its sixth fund that will be sector-agnostic, two people familiar with the company's plans told VCCircle.
The fund, likely to be sized similar to the firm's Indium V Fund, will be in range of $700-750 million, one of the persons cited above said.
That will make it the third-largest sector-agnostic PE fund with an India focus, after Everstone Capital’s third fund and Indium Fund V. Independently, however, several evergreen funds have been investing large amounts of capital in India. WestBridge Capital's public markets-focused evergreen fund had a corpus of around $1.55 billion, neck and neck with Fairfax India's known corpus of $1.56 billion.
"We are sometime away and shall announce when we decide to raise the next fund," a True North spokesperson said in response to an email query from VCCircle.
However, the second person said the PE firm already seems to be "placing papers with limited partners," referring to the agreements that are signed between limited partners (those who invest in PE and VC funds) and general partners.
Though the fund will be sector-agnostic, it will have an emphasis on consumer, healthcare, financial services and technology sectors.
With the closure of the Religare Health Insurance deal, True North's Indium Fund V would have deployed 70% of its capital, Srikrishna Dhawaram, partner, True North, had told VCCircle. The PE firm has acknowledged the blistering pace of deployment for the fund, which made it advance the time table for the next fund.
In a short span of two years, Indium Fund V has built a portfolio with majority stakes in Atria Convergence Technologies, Kerala-based KIMS Hospitals, Home First Finance, and SeedWorks International Ltd.
Other minority investments from the fund include deGustibus Hospitality, Magma Fincorp, and OCL Ltd.
True North would be going to the market at a time when availability of capital is at an all-time high. PE firms have raised record amounts of capital.
Since 2000, True North (called India Value Fund Advisors earlier) has raised $1.9 billion through five funds and invested in 35 businesses, according to its website.
