JP Morgan managing director and India head of legal Jigar Shah will be joining KKR in Mumbai as its India head of legal in a new role, said sources close to the development. It is understood that he will be leaving JP Morgan and joining KKR by the end of next month, where he will be reporting to the local partners and the Asia Pacific region general counsel. It is understood that KKR has not had an in-house legal role until now, so Shah will be the first lawyer to build the legal function in the Indian finance and private equity space. JP executive director Yash Yadav will take over in the GC role. Yadav had joined Shah in November 2015 from Deutsche Bank, where Shah was also previous India legal head before moving to JP Morgan.
Both JP and KKR refused to comment on the development. Shah holds a 1992 LLB from the University of Leicester, and had spent the earlier days of his career abroad (between 2002 and 2009 at Deutsche Bank in London and Hong Kong, returning to India in 2009). KKR is world’s second-largest private equity fund behind The Blackstone Group, according to Private Equity International in 2017 having raised $41bn of funds in five years. In India too, KKR has been active with a number of subsidiaries in addition to its PE plays, such as KKR India Asset Finance and KKR India Financial Services, involved in areas such as private credit to distressed debt.
