The government-backed National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) is planning to raise $2 billion under its maiden private credit fund that would make it India’s largest such vehicle.
The NIIF is in early discussions with sovereign investors to secure their participation for the planned credit fund, chief executive officer Sanjiv Aggarwal said at an event organised by the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA) in Mumbai on Wednesday.
The planned fund will focus on performing credit and will aim to channel capital from international limited partners, or investors, into India.
“The objective is to mobilise international capital, and to invest it in the Indian economy. We want to offer large co-investments to our LPs because we want to do large deals. LPs... also want to do large deals,” Aggarwal said.
The NIIF, which was established in 2016, operates across four asset classes including infrastructure and climate business operating in the energy transition segment.
It is anchored by the Indian government. Its international backers include Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Australia’s AustralianSuper, the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and Singapore’s Temasek.
The NIIF manages four other funds, each with a different investment strategy. These are the NIIF Master Fund, Strategic Opportunities Fund (SOF), the India-Japan Fund and the Private Markets Fund (PMF). Overall, the NIIF manages about $4.4 billion of equity capital commitments across its four funds.
The Master Fund invests in infrastructure projects while the SOF makes both minority and control-oriented investments in local companies. The India-Japan Fund makes climate-related investments and the PMF backs private equity and venture capital funds. The NIIF is currently raising its second PMF vehicle with a target corpus of $1 billion.
