IDFC PE to raise $600 million in third fund by March 2008

IDFC Private Equity, the private equity investment arm of infrastructure financing firm Infrastructure Development Finance Co. Ltd (IDFC), is raising a $600 million (Rs2,364 crore) fund, its third since it set up operations as the country’s first pure play infrastructure PE investor in 2002. The proposed fund has an upper limit of $700 million on the final corpus and is expected to close fund-raising in March 2008 as reported by Mint.

Separately, IDFC PE’s parent, the state-owned IDFC is itself in the process of closing first-round commitments for a mega $5 billion mega infrastructure fund, which includes debt and equity. With the proposed $600 million fund, total funds raised by IDFC PE till date stand at $1.2 billion. Its first fund, India Development Fund, had a corpus of $192 million and was the first to raise capital entirely from domestic institutional investors. The second fund, dubbed, IDFC Private Equity Fund II, raised $440 million of which over 70% came from overseas investors.

The firm has invested in 22 companies till date, which includes three airports and 31 roads and bridges. It typically picks up stakes between 10% and 50% in each of its portfolio companies and invests across the spectrum in power, oil and gas, transportation, telecom, urban and rural infrastructure and social infrastructure