FidelisWorld Asset Management or FW Asset, promoted by former JP Morgan executive Anand Krishnan, has hired Sripat Pandey from New York-based investment bank Duff & Phelps as principal (private equity) to lead its investment efforts, as per a company statement.
"Sripat brings a wealth of financial services experience in equity investing, investment banking and corporate finance/M&A," said Anand S Krishnan, founding partner of FW Asset.
Pandey, who started his career as a buy side analyst with one of India’s first offshore funds, has 18 years of investment experience which is equally divided between equity investing, investment banking and corporate finance/M&A.
Prior to joining FW Asset, Pandey was director (M&A) at Duff & Phelps. Previously he worked with Hinduja group firm HBI, head of M&A at 3i Infotech besides ICICI Securities. He is a graduate of IIT Kanpur and has an MBA degree from IIM Bangalore.
FidelisWorld had last year made first close for a private equity fund focused on sports and sports ancillary space at $100 million. The fund, called FW Sports Investment Fund L.P. (FSIF), is targeting a corpus of $200 million.
The fund targets investments in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
The firm is said to be in talks to invest in at least two firms Smaaash and Technology Frontiers (Techfront).
Smaaash, a venture jointly owned by Sharekhan founder Shripal Morakhia and former cricket player Sachin Tendulkar, offers augmented reality simulators to play cricket and race F1 cars, among other sports.
Techfront is into in-stadia sports management and is involved with events like the English Premier League football event and F1 racing.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
