PE/VC investments remain flat at $3.31 bn in October: Report

Mumbai: Venture investment activity in India slowed down both by value and deal volumes in October to $3.312 billion in 91 transactions on account of poor show by the realty sector, a report said on Monday.

The country had recorded 98 deals which had seen investments of $3.744 billion by private equity and venture capital funds in September, and $3.336 billion in 64 deals in October 2018, data from EY, a transaction consultancy, said.

The report comes amid economic growth slipping to a six-year low of 5 per cent for the June quarter, and with some analysts expecting it to go down to as low as 4.9 per cent in FY20.

EY's partner Vivek Soni was not so much perturbed by the dip in activity and pointed out PE/VC investments in 2019 have maintained a consistent monthly run rate of over $3 billion, and have increased 16.5 billion to $43.7 billion for the ten months of the year.

The data showed realty investments coming down in October to $114 million, which is a tenth of the $1.450 billion in September.

A massive jump in infrastructure investments supported the overall deal activity, with growth to $1.415 billion from the $98 million in the month-ago period.

Interest in the infrastructure sector was driven from global buyout, pension and sovereign funds who continue to take large bets and the trend is expected to remain strong in the near future, it said.

Major investments included Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (AIDA), Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), and National Investment and Infrastructure Funds (NIIF) $1.1 billion investment in GVK Airport Holdings, it said.

From an exits perspective, the sell-offs were 30 per cent lower at $960 million as against the $1.4 billion in the year-ago period and 64 per cent down as compared to September's $2.6 billion, it said.