Brookfield emerges as largest private investor in India
nMUMBAI: Canadian alternative asset manager Brookfield Asset Management trumped US private equity firm Blackstone to emerge as the largest private capital investor in India in 2019, lifted by deals with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).
Investments by Brookfield totalled nearly $6.28 billion last year across private equity and real estate, far outpacing the $2.38 billion in investments by Blackstone, according to deals tracker Venture Intelligence.
To be sure, for the four years through 2018, Blackstone had topped the list with investments of $4.34 billion, more than double Brookfield’s nearly $2.07 billion.
That changed last year when Brookfield signed deals with billionaire Mukesh Ambani-controlled RIL. Brookfield made a $3.6 billion buyout of the telecom infrastructure assets of RIL’S subsidiary, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. It was the largest ever deal in India made by a private equity investor.
Brookfield also invested more than $1.87 billion in RIL’S gas pipeline assets, East West Pipeline Ltd.
The two investments, made through the infrastructure investment trusts (Invits) of the companies, made up more than three quarters of Brookfield’s overall investments in the country in 2019.
Last year’s deals catapulted Brookfield’s total investments in India to $8.3 billion in the fiveyear period through 2019, ahead of Blackstone’s $6.7 billion, shows data.
One of the primary reasons for the increase in Brookfield’s India investments is linked to attractive yields offered by infrastructure assets in the country and the acceptability of Invits, which have emerged as a preferred investment route for large institutional investors.