Investec Capital Services (India) Private Limited, the investment manager of Emerging India Credit Opportunities Fund I (EICOF-I), has announced third close of the fund to raise around Rs 850 crore (over $110 million) to date from over 340 investors.
The fund has a target corpus of Rs 1,000 crore including the greenshoe option. Its primary focus is on firms that have a strong promoter background, good corporate governance and solid financial performance.
According to the fund's investment strategy, about 85% of the raised cash has already been placed in senior, secured non-convertible debentures.
The greenshoe option allows the firm to raise capital beyond the target.
“The macro outlook for some of the mainstream asset classes across debt and equity has changed significantly over the last few weeks in particular and remains uncertain with headwinds in form of rising rates, liquidity withdrawal, geopolitical events and inflationary pressures.
Given this backdrop, we continue to receive strong investor interest as well as find attractive deployment opportunities for our strategy which is well-positioned in such an environment," said Piyush Gupta, Head of private credit, Investec Capital.
In an interaction with VCCircle, Gupta said that while the large caps are enjoying a substantial spread compression and ample availability of liquidity, the demand for private credit and flexible debt solutions remains strong.
The fund will be largely sector agnostic but will make diversified investments across various manufacturing and services sectors, he added.
After the IL&FS liquidity squeeze, some wholesale non-banking financial institutions (NBFCs) have withdrawn from the mid-market lending area, credit strategy became particularly appealing, Investec said.
Investec has been underwriting Indian mid-market private credit since 2013-14.
Since launching its credit strategy, Investec has underwritten over $1.1 billion worth of onshore and offshore private financing towards mid-market businesses owned by financial sponsors and promoters in both Indian rupee and foreign currency financings.
Investec Capital is an 80:20 joint venture between Investec Bank plc and SBI Capital Markets Ltd.
