The US-based private equity major Warburg Pincus will acquire about 30% stake in Home First Finance Company (HFFC), the Mumbai-based affordable housing finance company. Warburg will invest about Rs.800 crore in HFFC, said two people aware of the development.
In this secondary round, existing investors True North Capital, and Bessemer Ventures will sell part of their stake to Warburg.
Home-grown private equity firm True North Capital, along with co-investor GIC owns about 74% of HFFC. Another 16% stake is held by VC fund Bessemer Ventures, and the rest is with the management.
HFFC was set up in 2010 by former Mphasis chairman Jerry Rao and PS Jayakumar, MD & CEO of Bank of Baroda.
In March, market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) had given an approval for the initial public offering of Home First Finance Company. The company is expected to raise Rs 1,500 crore through its public offer. The DRHP was with SEBI in November last year.
The IPO consists a fresh issue of Rs 400 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 1,100 crore by promoters – P S Jayakumar, Manoj Vishwanathan and Bhaskar Chaudhry, and investors – True North Fund V LLP and Bessemer India Capital Holdings II.
As on 31 March 2020, HFFC has an AUM of Rs. 3600 crore.
Mails sent to Warburg Pincus, Bessemer India and True North did not elicit any responses till the press time.
In the financial services space, Warburg has wide exposure in India with investments in IndiaFirst Bank, SBI General Insurance, CAMS, Avanse, AU Small Finance Bank and Fusion Microfinance.
With more than $53 billion in assets under management, the firm has an active portfolio of more than 185 companies globally.
True North (formerly India Value Fund Advisors) manages a combined corpus of more than $2.8 billion. Last year, it sold food ingredients maker VKL Seasoning to Swiss buyer Firmenich SA and Innovative B2B Logistics Solutions to Adani Logistics.
Source: Economic Times