New Delhi, April 24 -- Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which ended the previous fiscal year with its net assets in India breaching the C$20-billion (Rs 1.21 trillion) mark even as it moderated the pace of its private equity-style investments in the country, has logged a monetization move in India.
The pension fund has pressed the sell button on a nearly five-year-old portfolio company. It sold nearly half its 6% odd stake in ecommerce-focused logistics company Delhivery on Wednesday.
In the process it encashed over Rs 900 crore or around $110 million, virtually taking out its principal investment amount, via a secondary market transaction.
Its remaining stake is worth Rs 1,050 crore.
CPPIB had invested around $115 million or around Rs 825 crore in 2019, via a secondary transaction.
It stayed put when the company went public and has now generated an internal rate of return of 20-23%, as per VCCircle estimates.
This comes a month after it announced a follow-on investment of Rs 1,820 crore (C$297 million) in the units of National Highways Infra Trust (NHIT, also known as NHAI InvIT), an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) sponsored by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The investment is part of NHIT's capital raise by way of an institutional placement. The proceeds will be used to acquire seven brownfield toll roads, currently owned by NHAI, as part of Government of India's National Monetisation Pipeline.
Following this investment, CPP Investments will continue to hold 25% of the units in NHIT. CPP Investments' total investment in NHIT will increase to Rs 3,680 crore (C$614 million).
In the quarter ended September 30, 2023, CPPIB exited a co-investment bet from 2019. CPPIB, which had invested in technology services company Coforge Ltd along with private equity firm BPEA EQT, exited the investment last August. It harvested about C$145 million from the transaction. BPEA EQT reaped about $931 million from the exit via a secondary market transaction.
Meanwhile, CPPIB had signed a cheque of over $100 million for mid-market focused private equity firm Multiples PE's latest fund as an anchor investor alongside International Finance Corporation, the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank Group. This investment helped Multiples PE mark the first close of the fund at $640 million. It is likely that the pension fund topped up its investment with $60 million, taking its total commitment to $160 million.
As for real assets investment, it doubled down on its investment in IndInfravit Trust, an infrastructure investment trust, pumping in an additional C$537 million into the InvIT and taking its ownership interest to nearly 61%. The additional investment was used to fund the acquisition of four toll roads.
The pension fund has been an active investor in India since 2009. It has invested across sectors and asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, and public and private equities. It also makes limited partner-style commitments to alternative investment funds, besides making co-investments and credit bets in India.
The firm plans to make a third of its investments in emerging markets by 2025, it had earlier said. Its exposure to the Asia-Pacific region rose to about 26% of its portfolio in fiscal 2023, next only to the US.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.