The Indian arm of the US-based real estate private equity firm Walton Street Capital and Mumbai-based realty investment firm BlackSoil have tied up for a sector-focussed fund that has a target corpus of Rs 300 crore ($45 million).
Christened as Walton Street BlackSoil Real Estate Debt Fund - I, the fund has so far raised Rs 200 crore from domestic investors to hit the first close, the companies said in a statement.
The development comes almost a year after VCCircle first reported that the Mumbai-based PE firm is looking at tying up with an offshore firm for its new fund.
The funds will be used to invest in secured debt instruments issued by established developers which are mainly engaged in construction and development of residential real estate in cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, the companies said.
It would partner with developers which have established track records in their respective micro markets, enjoy healthy credit profile, have all the approvals in place and their projects are priced for mid-market and affordable housing.
Shashi Kiran Shetty, one of the promoters of BlackSoil said, “The fund has received strong support from existing investors in addition to commitments from a diverse group of new investors.â€
“We intend to build upon BlackSoil’s experience in this sector in India. Conservative underwriting, bottom-up investment approach and active post-investment monitoring are key attributes of the fund,†said a director at Walton Street India Finance Pvt. Ltd, the fund’s anchor investor.
Walton Street Capital India has been actively investing in India since 2007 and has closed investments worth over Rs 1,350 crore across both equity and structured debt. Since 2013, it has invested along with co-investors in eight debt transactions together worth Rs 540 crore.
This is the second fund of BlackSoil for real estate investments. It launched its maiden AIF Category II Realty Fund in 2013 with a corpus of Rs 157.5 crore and deployed it across seven transactions. Recently, it also launched a non-banking financial company from which it has invested Rs 260 crore in real estate across 14 transactions.
The promoters of BlackSoil include Shashi Kiran Shetty, chairman of Allcargo Group and Gnanesh (Sunil) Gala, promoter of Navneet Education.
