Businessworld has published an interview with the Akhil Gupta, head of the Blackstone Group's Indian operations:
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.
Which sectors do you find most attractive in India now?
We are looking at companies across all sectors. As big-ticket players, we will not look at any deal below $25 million. The BPO space for private equity participation is saturated. Thus, going ahead, one might see a lot of private equity participation in pharmaceuticals, real estate, export and infrastructure.
What is Blackstone's USP vis-a-vis other private equity players in India?
A clear differentiator is that we will only do the big-ticket deals. Second, we have the largest portfolio companies as compared to our colleagues in the private equity space. So we position ourselves as catalysts for cross-border activities and as partners for growth over a long term. Even for a sector like telecom, which is essentially local in nature, we bring in our global expertise about process knowhow, etc., to enhance performance. We will be performance-driven at any stage of our partnership.
Arun Natarajan is the Founder of Venture Intelligence India, which tracks venture capital activity in India and Indian-founded companies worldwide. View sample issues of TSJ Media's Venture Intelligence India newsletters and reports.