Private equity/venture capital investments up 27 per cent in H1 2019

Chennai: While private equity and venture capital investments grew 27 per cent in H12019, exits declined by 26 per cent.

In the best half yearly performance, investments worth $23.4 billion were recorded across 536 deals in H12019. This was 27 per cent higher compared to H12018 and 30 per cent compared to H2 2018. In terms of the number of deals, the increase was higher by 43 per cent and 35 per cent compared to H1 2018 and H2 2018 respectively, according to the data from EY.

The outperformance is mainly attributable to the record level of investments worth $11.1 billion in infrastructure and real estate. These two sectors together accounted for 48 per cent of all PE/VC investments.

While investments in real estate increased by 66 per cent over H12018, investments in the infrastructure sector at $7.3 billion were higher than the total infrastructure investments of $6.5 billion made in the previous two years combined.

As many as 54 large deals of value greater than $100 million continued to drive the growth of PE/VC investments. It was the highest number for large deals in any half-yearly period.

The largest deal in H1 2019 was Brookfield's buyout of Reliance Industries' East-West pipeline worth $1.9 billion.

However, on a year-on-year basis, exits declined by 26 per cent in terms of value in H1 2019 to $4.1 billion against $5.5 billion in H1 2018. The decline was mainly due to fewer large deals.