International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector investment arm of the World Bank Group, is looking to commit up to $25 million in the healthcare-focused fund Quadria Capital Fund L.P., which will look at investment in South and South-east Asia. The fund is targeting $300 million and is being sponsored by Religare Global Asset Management, a unit of India-based Religare Enterprises Ltd. IFC has recently invested $75 million in Religare Enterprises.
Quadria Capital Fund expects to have its first close in 2013 and is likely to be registered in the Cayman Islands as an exempted limited partnership.
The fund is led by managing partners Abrar Mir and Dr Amit Verma. Verma is a senior executive with Religare Enterprises and Fortis Healthcare, both promoted by the Singh brothers of Ranbaxy. He has also worked with Milestone Religare, a healthcare and education-focused fund jointly promoted by Milestone Capital and Religare.
Abrar founded and acted as the managing partner for NBD Sana Capital, one of the largest Shari’a-compliant private equity funds in the Middle East. He joined Religare Capital Markets in 2010 before setting up Quadria.
Quadria will pick up stake in growth-stage companies in areas like healthcare delivery, life sciences, medical technology and associated healthcare services. The fund expects to invest the corpus equally between South Asia and South-east Asia.
Quadria Capital Investment Management, the investment manager, will be located in Singapore, and Quadria Capital Investment Advisory, the investment advisor, will be located in Delhi.
The fund comes as PE investments in healthcare and medical equipment services have reached a record high on back of several large investments in companies like Manipal Hospital, Vasan Healthcare, CARE Hospital, DM Healthcare, Trivitron and Nova Medical.
According to VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle, there have been 31 healthcare deals worth $773 million till November 2012, compared to 24 deals worth $274 million in entire 2011.
(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)