Forum Synergies (India) PE Fund Managers, a Bangalore-based private equity firm, has got the government approval to accept $135 million from Mauritius-based Knowledge Manufacturing Company.
Forum will receive the fund as foreign direct investment (FDI). With this investment, Knowledge Manufacturing Company will get units in the private equity firm.
The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs has approved the company proposal to raise the fund through the FDI route. “It would result in an FDI amounting to Rs 650 crore in the country,” said an official statement. The committee also approved Forum Synergies to issue class B and class C units of Forum Synergies India Trust to the Knowledge Manufacturing Company, added the statement.
Earlier in August 2008, the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) had rejected the proposal of Forum Synergies’ fund-raising from the source when the Department of Revenue objected to it on the ground that it may involve an alleged treaty shopping.
The PE firm is co-founded by former president & CEO of GE Consumer & Industrial for India Samir Inamdar. The other co-founders are Sudhir Kant and Prashant Goyal, who is the COO of the firm.
Forum Synergies was planning to raise money from HNIs, NRIs besides corporate and financial institutions based in the US, UK, the Middle East and South East Asia through the Mauritius entity. It was planning to invest growth-expansion capital besides targeting small and mid-sized firms eyeing pre-IPO transactions.