Edelweiss Alternatives, a unit of India’s Edelweiss Group, said it has raised $1 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) for the third generation of its special situations strategy.
Over the past 12 months, Edelweiss Alternatives has invested in deals worth over $400 million (Rs. 3,000 crore) from its third-generation fund, representing over 40% of the total amount raised to date. The investments from the fund spread across various sectors, including Roads, Steel, Paper, Hotel, Leased offices, and Real Estate.
In Oct 2022, Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors (EAAA), had raised $425 million for the third Special Situations Fund. The firm said it was targeting to raise $1 billion, with a green shoe option of $500 million.
The second-generation special situations fund had seen the largest fundraising in alternatives in India in 2018, the firm claimed. The second-generation special situations fund deployed over $1.2 billion across over 40 transactions. It claims to have recovered $1.5 billion from the fund to date, including exits in 21 deals.
“We have witnessed annual deal activity increase over the last five years, growing from approximately $1-1.5 billion annually to almost $5-6 billion annually, nearly quadrupling in volume. As a leader in the private credit space, we expect the market to grow from its current size of $14 billion to $100 billion over the next decade as India doubles its GDP to $7 trillion,” said Venkat Ramaswamy, Vice Chairman, Edelweiss Group.
From the third generation of the special situations strategy fund, Edelweiss claims to have an active pipeline of deals valued at nearly $480 million across a diverse range of opportunities.
The fund was driven by strong investor interest from both large global institutional investors and prominent Indian family offices.
“We have witnessed increased operational cash flows, refinancing, secondary debt sales, stake sales, strategic sales of companies/assets, non-core asset sales, and IBC resolutions across our diversified portfolio. Special situation deals are very attractive in the current Indian context, as secondary sales of loans continue to be strong, even as most underlying assets are operating well but require solutions to reach sustainable debt levels.” Amit Agarwal, President and Head of Private Credit, Edelweiss Alternatives. said.