Rabobank's PE arm to invest Rs 232 cr this fiscal

KOLKATA: Rabo Equity Advisors, the PE arm of Rabobank, will invest Rs 232 crore ($50 million) in the current fiscal.

The investment will largely go into packaged foods and beverage companies and quick food service chains. The investment will come from Rabo Equity’s Rs 564-crore ($120 million) India Agri Business Fund.

Rajesh Srivastava, chairman and managing director of Rabo Equity Advisors, told ET: “Keeping in view our vision to create a portfolio pie with investments in 8-10 different sectors, we are looking at segments we haven’t invested in yet. We hope to now invest in consumer inter-facing businesses like packaged foods and beverages. This includes functional foods and quick food service chains. Food and agri infrastructure will also be in focus.”

He added that most sectors in food and agriculture continue to be attractive due to their intrinsic resilience to external economic factors. “Processed/convenience foods are attractive due to their low per capital consumption, but irreversible consumerism in India,” he said.

Rabo Equity is targeting to invest roughly $45-50 million in this fiscal. “This will take our investment to $80-85 million in total or roughly 70% of my funds corpus which achieved its final closing at $120 million. This will be possible in a relatively short span due to an aggressive marketing strategy and evaluation by a well accomplished team working at Rabo Equity,” Mr Srivastava said.a