Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors (EAAA), the alternative-assets division of Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd., has announced that it raised $1 billion (approximately ₹8,000 crore) for its third special-situations fund. While the fund is still open for investment, it has already invested more than 40% of its corpus across eight deals.
The fund, with a target corpus of $1 billion and a green-shoe option of $500 million, commenced its journey in October of the previous year. It secured an initial $425 million for its first close from global institutional investors, including insurance companies, pension funds, high-net-worth individuals, and family offices in India.
This special-situations fund primarily focuses on providing businesses with relatively quick and accessible working capital solutions, rather than long-term investments. As part of its investment strategy, the fund seeks out opportunities in various sectors, including roads, steel, paper, hotels, leased offices, and real estate.
The Edelweiss Group’s Vice Chairman, Venkat Ramaswamy, expressed the company’s commitment to delivering superior risk-adjusted returns and consistent yield/income to its clients while also creating value for all stakeholders and fostering job creation and protection.
Edelweiss Alternatives anticipates disbursements from offshore investors in the first quarter of the financial year 2024. The spokesperson also mentioned that the fund’s fundraising target is expected to be similar to that of its predecessor.
The second special-situations fund, which closed in January 2019 with a significant fundraise of about $1.2 billion, marked the largest alternatives fund in India, with notable investors, including the Canadian pension fund CDPQ. The fund’s second iteration deployed over $1.2 billion across 40 transactions, resulting in 21 deals and generating approximately $1.5 billion from these transactions.
Amit Agarwal, President and Head of Private Credit at Edelweiss Alternatives, emphasized the attractiveness of special-situation deals in the current Indian context. He highlighted that such deals are especially appealing due to the robust secondary sales of loans, even when the underlying assets are functioning well but require solutions to attain sustainable debt levels.
Edelweiss has a substantial presence in the alternative investment landscape, managing one of the largest alternative investment platforms in India, with approximately $5.9 billion (₹49,000 crore) in assets under management. The firm maintains a keen focus on delivering high-quality credit and yield opportunities to global and domestic professional investors across performing credit (corporate and real estate), special situations, and infrastructure yield.