Temasek scouts for more investments in India

Temasek Holdings, Singapore government’s investment company, will continue to scout for investments across consumption-oriented segments in India this year, even as it’s open to opportunities from other sectors.

In the previous year, the company’s bigger investments were in consumption-oriented segments such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, financial services (including insurance), technology (e-commerce or payment) and consumer (FMCG companies).

The investments were made across public and private companies.

“That trend is likely to continue, and that’s where we see most of the India story playing out, unless there are certain opportunities that come up from other sectors.

“We are always open to opportunities from other sectors too,” said R Venkatesh, Managing Director, Temasek Holdings Advisors India Pvt Ltd.

For the sector-agnostic investment firm, there is no preferred exit mode, and previously the company has exited through various modes such as strategic stake, secondary sales and IPOs.

On an average, the company has invested more than $1 billion every year in India across sectors such as consumer, financial services, new economy, healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

“We don’t have an industry allocation, a country allocation or any type of deal allocation. It’s entirely based on the deals that make the cart. Our investments are very much bottoms up, and depends on opportunities,” said Promeet Ghosh, also a Managing Director at Temasek Holdings Advisors.

Temasek, which started its Indian operations in 2004, has investments in companies such as Bajaj Corp, Crompton Greaves, Oberoi Realty, GMR Energy, Axis Bank, Glenmark Pharma and Sun Pharma.

India is one of the markets across the world the company is focusing on due to good macros, great demographics and a rising middle-income population, Ghosh added.

Last week, Temasek posted a net portfolio value of S$242 billion for year ended March, lower from S$266 billion posted during the previous year.

This was the Singapore investment company’s first portfolio decline since the 2009 global financial crisis.

India’s exposure to that was about 5 per cent, which was a rise from 4 per cent last year.

“This is reflective of a mark-to-market fall in some of our listed portfolio companies across the world. About 60 per cent of our portfolio is listed and about two-thirds of these are exposed to markets in Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchanges, which have fallen between 15-26 per cent,” Venkatesh said.

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