Intrepid Capital Partners (ICP), an investment firm promoted by London-based Indian businessman Cyrus Vandrevala and legendary American venture capitalist Warren V “Pete” Musser and headquartered in the United States, is to lend Rs 10 billion of capital to infrastructure and real estate developers in India.
A source at the London office of the company revealed this was a first tranche of what could in due course become a Rs 50 billion facility. Joe Deluca, managing director of ICP, said: “This is an underserved market as it requires very specific on-the-ground experts to make such investments. ICP has that expertise and experience.”
The disclosure came on a day when the Indian finance minister Arun Jaitley had arrived in London and was scheduled to deliver a lecture on the union government’s budget presented by him two weeks ago and investment opportunities in India arising out of it in the British capital.
ICP said the proposed debt fund is a first of its kind. It focuses on participating in the debt segment of a capital structure as opposed to equity, providing loans to cash-strapped mid-size developers with one to four year projects.
ICP stated: “The fund will have a debt corpus of Rs 10 billion and will target a 20% IRR.” It will lend primarily to developers of residential projects and selected commercial properties in and around Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru.
The fund is co-led by Deluca, who has previously managed US $1 billion of transactions for ICP, including many in India, and Roy Rodrigues, a former India head of Oak Investment Partners and previously a managing director at Bear Stearns. Speaking from Mumbai, Rodrigues said: “We are very excited to use ICP’s platform in India to invest in debt.” Since it was founded in 2001, ICP has invested into India, primarily as an equity investor in IT-ITES-BPO, infrastructure and real estate.
