Kapil Singhal, a managing director at KKR India Financial Services, the Indian non-banking arm of global alternative asset manager KKR, is now heading the credit business, a spokesperson said.
The elevation comes amid a slump and rating downgrade for KKR India Financial Services, which secured so-called confidence capital in January from its parent.
In October last year, KKR had hired Singhal from Edelweiss Group to boost its credit team.
KKR India Financial Services has been in turmoil for the last two years as the credit business struggled with its investments in firms such as Kwality Dairy, Resonance Eduventures, Sintex BAPL. Last year, its India chief of corporate credit business BV Krishnan stepped down in December, amidst increasing stress in the credit portfolio. Krishnan was chief executive of KKR India Financial Services for over a decade and had built the business from the ground up.
Singhal will report to KKR’s India chief executive Sanjay Nayar.
Nayar also took over as the chief executive of KKR India Financial Services after Krishnan stepped down.
“They work closely with Brian Dillard, who leads KKR’s credit business in Asia-Pacific,” the spokesperson said.
Singhal's elevation was first reported earlier in the day by The Economic Times.
Over the last few months, KKR has also been trying to boost its non-banking Indian arm.
It capitalised the business with $150 million "confidence capital" last month after a credit rating downgrade in October 2019.
KKR India Financial has also recorded a jump in bad loans, leading to a slump in profit and a rating downgrade by Crisil Ltd in October 2019. Gross non-performing assets climbed to 2.06% for 2018-19 from zero the year before, Crisil said. Its net profit slumped to about Rs 24 crore in 2018-19 from Rs 147 crore a year earlier, according to its annual report.
