Private equity investments in aggregate declined 64.9 per cent on a year-on-year basis in April-June 2020 at $1.45 billion, data from Refinitiv, a provider of financial markets data, showed.

This, however, excluded the pending acquisitions of $15.26 billion in Jio Platforms as of end June 30. Taken together, the total private equity investments into India in the June quarter stood at robust $16.72 billion — a 259 per cent increase over PE investments of $4.66 billion in April-June 2019.

The quarter under review witnessed a 9 per cent decline in the number of deals at 161 (177 deals in April-June 2019). In January-March this year, the number of PE deals stood at 178 with sum of equity at $3.98 billion.

Internet-specific sector

Clearly, Internet-specific companies continue to attract maximum PE interest, but has witnessed nearly 80 per cent decline in value terms on a year-on-year basis in April-June 2020 (excluding pending acquisitions of Jio platform).

In terms of industry-specific investments, Internet Specific, Computer Software and Financial Services have seen the maximum investments coming in April-June 2020. Sum of equity invested in the internet-specific sector have dropped by 76 per cent, after number of deals declined from 77 (April-June 2019) to 71 (April-June 2020). Computer Software (-46 per cent year-on-year), as well as Financial Services (-26 per cent year-on-year) have witnessed a decline of sum invested as compared to Q2 last year, whereas Medical Health (+260 per cent year-on-year) and Consumer Related (+95 per cent year-on-year) were among the sectors that witnessed an increase of sum invested as compared to April-June last year.

Some of the top PE investment deals in the first half this calendar year including pending acquisitions are Jio Platforms Ltd ($15.26 billion); Oravel Stays ($807 million); SBI General Insurance ($439 million); Think & Learn ($201 million) and IndoStar Capital Finance ($191.04 million).

Srinath Sridharan, an independent markets commentator, said that certain global markets had started getting into Covid-19 lockdown as early as February 2020 and global investors had started “conserving” liquidity, in view of the then-developing uncertain economic situation. Thanks to indications of the availability of a vaccine in months to come, it has cheered the investment market, he said.

“Now the investors have a better view on the business models that have been stress-tested by Covid-19 impacted economy and will start investing in months to come,” Sridharan said.

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