New Delhi, April 25 -- Private equity firm TA Associates, which struck a large exit deal to sell its entire holding in Indira IVF via a secondary transaction with BPEA EQT and made another liquidity move from a five-year old portfolio last year, has started the new year with another exit move in India.
The PE firm has trimmed its holding in National Stock Exchange (NSE).
The transaction was completed early this year and is believed to have resulted in liquidity worth around Rs 95-100 crore or around $11.5-12 million, it is gathered.
This comes after a series of share sales by the PE firm last year.
A year ago, it pulled out around Rs 120-125 crore. TA followed it up with a bigger tranche last autumn, when it sold a fifth of its remaining 2.25% stake in NSE for an estimated Rs 655 crore, or around $80 million. Later during the year, it encashed a further Rs 125 crore or close to $15 million.
As a result, it has nearly taken out the principal investment amount. The PE firm had picked around 2.3% stake in NSE for $150 million four years ago or around Rs 1,100 crore then.
In rupee terms, it has pulled out around 4x to date while the dollar terms returns are a tad lower due to the depreciation of the Indian currency.
Annualised realised returns in local currency is pegged around 50%, as against 20% benchmark that PE firms aim for.
Its remaining 1.66% stake is now worth upwards of $300 million.
TA Associates, which struck a clutch of exits last year harvesting over $500 million from India and was among the most active in monetising its bets in the country last year, also sold nearly half its 3.48% stake in drug ingredients maker Shilpa Medicare Ltd for about Rs 54.75 crore ($6.5 million) early this year.
It was not so lucky in that deal taking a haircut of 29% in absolute rupee terms over a seven-year holding period. In dollar terms, the haircut is nearly 40% because of the US currency's appreciation against the Indian unit.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.