Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a global private equity fund, has roped in Nomura’s Dhiren Mehta as director of KKR India to handle KKR’s multi-asset-class business in India, the company has said in a statement today. In his new role, Mehta will be based out of Mumbai, working with KKR India’s CEO Sanjay Nayar and B V Krishnan, director and head of KKR’s non-banking financial company.
Prior to joining KKR, Mehta served as Nomura India’s executive director and head of fixed income institutional sales for India. Mehta started his career at Citigroup where he worked for more than 17 years – across equity and fixed income domains. He played an important role in building Citigroup’s fixed income sales platform in India, and also served as the head of Citigroup’s credit trading business in the country. He was also the managing director for the Primary Dealership vehicle at Citigroup and served as a board member of the Primary Dealership Association of India.
In 2010, KKR had done a mix of fixed income and equity deals in India. It took equity stakes in the demerged cement unit of Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd and invested $200 million with a consortium in Coffee Day Holdings. It had also made debt investments in the Sajjan Jindal Group, Analjit Singh’s Max India and Avantha Power. Its most recent deal included 14.95 per cent stake purchase in Kolkata-based non-banking finance company Magma Fincorp.
Last year, KKR had roped in former Goldman Sachs MD Heramb Hajarnavis to strengthen its India private equity team.