Hey All,
Does anyone on here have experience with (or know someone who has experience with) private equity in India? Specifically wondering a few things, and I'm referencing mainly U.S. Megafunds and their Indian offices (Bain, KKR, Carlyle, Apax, Blackstone, Warburg, TPG all have them).
1. How does the recruiting process work at the associate level?
2. What is the pay like annually, both base and bonus (USD or INR, whichever anyone has info on)
3. What are the main industries that are covered, and what is the average deal size for these funds
And any additional information would be great. Trying to do some research for a good friend who will begin working out of a BB over there, and thought this might have some good answers. There is a M&I piece on it, but seems dated and frankly isn't very helpful.
Thanks guys.
a buddy of mine worked for one of the firms you listed in your original post. he's US born and educated and was working in NYC and did the normal PE recruitment. the firm that hired him offered for him to go to India. He was paid the same he would have in NYC. He then went to H/S and works at another MF now.
He said the work wasn't that interesting though as you can pretty much only do minority deals with family owned businesses. Unlike China, India isn't a very big or rapidly growing PE market so teams are tiny and deal flow is rather poor.
I've done a decent amount of business in India and while I couldn't tell you about pay, recruiting or things like that I can second this. India is a bit like the US was 100 years ago (and I don't mean that in a demeaning way or exactly 100 years ago) where families hold onto companies for generations and the goal isn't necessarily an exit, regardless of the rupee amount, but about giving your sons (not daughters for the most part) the business. That makes acquiring companies pretty difficult. It's easier to set up JV's when you bring in capital for a new venture using the in-country operator and even then there are strict FDI and debt rules that don't make sense to Westerners. Leverage almost doesn't work because it's pretty gouth to bring in foreign debt and they set interest at prime plus, and the last time I did a deal there prime was at 12%. It's worth noting that my experience is at least 3 years old so maybe Modi has changed things but I doubt it's that radical.
It's also pretty difficult if you're not Indian, and I don't mean American born and/or raised Indian-Americans, but born and raised there. There's the obvious contacts/network but there's just an Indian way of doing business that's different than the West and it's tough to be able to really know that. I've done business in a decent amount of countries and India's probably the most difficult (maybe tied with the PRC but for different reasons).
Whenever you're doing business in India you need to have a very, very trusted Indian partner even if you're with BX. There's a ton of opportunity there, I like the common law roots of India but it's a very difficult place to do business as a foreigner.