Tuesday, Apr 30, 2013
(This article was originally published on Monday.)
DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Samena Capital, a buyout firm with offices in Hong Kong, London and Dubai, expects to finish three major acquisitions in the next two months as it looks to grow its blend of standard private equity and relationship-based investing, its chief executive said.
Samena, a five-year-old firm that focuses on the Indian subcontinent, Asia and the Middle East, recently closed a deal to buy a logistics firm in Singapore and is set to announce a deal in China in two weeks, Shirish Saraf, Samena's chief executive, said in an interview with Zawya Dow Jones.
The company is also leading a consortium of investors bidding for Reliance Globalcom, a telecom services and infrastructure subsidiary of India's Reliance Communications. The consortium has yet to make a binding offer, but the deal could value the business at over $1 billion, making it one of the largest-ever private equity transactions targeting an Indian company.
The investments are the newest chapter in Samena's rapid growth story, Mr. Saraf said. The company began with private equity funds alongside a fixed-income and credit fund, he said, and its assets under management have grown to roughly $800 million. Now, he said, the firm was bringing in wealthy shareholders alongside its funds to do bigger deals, giving it more firepower than the size of its funds might imply.
"We didn't press one deal for five years on direct investment," he said. "Now we've got three being announced in the next two months."
The new deals should push Samena's assets under management over the $1 billion mark, he said, making it one of the fastest private equity firms to reach that total despite getting started during one of the roughest periods in modern economic history.
"In terms of being one of the fastest growths in the history of private equity, we would be," Mr. Saraf said. "In the next three months, we'll cross about $1 billion of closed-ended funds, and in five years there are very few firms that have come to $1 billion."
Samena is growing in part thanks to its cooperative, relationship-based investment model, Mr. Saraf said. Samena separates itself from other private equity firms by exchanging ideas with shareholders at regular ownership group meetings, he said. The list of shareholders includes prominent Asian business figures, members of the Arab Gulf's ruling families and seasoned western executives.
"If you think about it, what's an investor getting in your typical fund management company?" he said. "He's getting one or two fund managers that make the calls and the decisions and one or two or maybe 10 great ideas. In this instance he'll have the involvement of maybe 35 people who are in the know as industry players whose reputations are aligned, so it's beyond just money."
Write to Asa Fitch at asa.fitch@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
30-04-13 0341GMT
