Pulak Prasad-led Nalanda Capital appears to have pressed the exit button and has part exited its investment with a multibagger from Kirloskar Oil Engines. The Singapore-headquartered private equity fund that invests in Indian listed companies has sold around 0.15 million shares out of 1.3 million it held in the company (before a capital restructuring) with an estimated return of around 4x in less than two years, as per VCCircle estimates.
Nalanda India Fund sold shares at Rs 400 a piece on Thursday. Although the exact cost of acquisition of the shares could not be ascertained, Nalanda had bought bulk of its 6.8% stake when the share price hovered around Rs 50-100 in the second half of 2008.
The fund, that has a $400-million corpus, typically operates by buying and selling shares in the open market rather than negotiated preferential allotment of shares and had made a lot of purchases during the downturn when valuations had touched a low.
Kirloskar Oil Engines that manufactures diesel engines, irrigation pumpsets, diesel generating sets, engine bearings and valves besides grey iron castings had recently undergone a restructuring that involved demerger of engine and auto component business from the firm into another group firm Kirloskar Engines India that has now become Kirloskar Industries.
Early this year Nalanda had sold most of its stake in Chennai-based broadcaster Sun TV Network Ltd for Rs 286 crore on the Bombay Stock Exchange. It was estimated to have made returns of around 2.5x in its 14-month-old investment in Kalanithi Maran-owned Sun TV.
Nalanda has in the past invested in companies such as Mindtree, Mastek, Triveni Engineering, Page Industries, Carborundum Universal, Vaibhav Gems and WNS.