Rajeev Bakshi to join ICICI Venture

MUMBAI: Rajeev Bakshi, who led Pepsi India and was the head honcho of Cadbury in the 1990s, is joining ICICI Venture as joint managing director, a senior official said on Tuesday. Mr Bakshi will join ICICI Venture in February or March next year and be part of the team that aims to turn ICICI into a $10 billion fund by 2010.

ICICI Venture CEO and MD Renuka Ramnath said Mr Bakshi will bring a wealth of operating experience to the fund. “It is consistent with our strategy of consolidating diversity of experience within ICICI Venture. We look at Rajeev Bakshi as one with enough management experience in terms of running companies and dealing with a whole host of issues as a leader,” Ms Ramnath said. As joint MD, Mr Bakshi will be effectively No. 2 in the organisation after Ms Ramnath.

Private equity firms such as ICICI often look to hire people with operating experience as it gives them the ability to deal with a wide range of issues when they take over companies. Akshay Bhargava, who set up Progeon for Infosys was snapped up by 3i after he quit the Bangalore-based software major. Akhil Gupta switched from Reliance Infocomm to Blackstone, while Sanjeev Aggarwal, who sold Daksh eServices to IBM, now runs Helion Venture Partners.

People with operating experience come in handy during complete buyouts when the PE fund gets involved in running a company. The complexity of issues involved requires someone with experience in tackling similar issues. Mr Bakshi had a successful stint at Lakme in sales and marketing before moving to head marketing at Cadbury in 1992. He was promoted as managing director in 1997 and then was managing director South Africa in 2000. In 2001, Mr Bakshi came back to India as chairman of Pepsi India, a position which he held till December 2006.

ICICI Venture is planning to expand the size and scope of its funds and achieve $10 billion under management by 2010 versus about $2.5 billion now. The firm is raising a new real estate fund of about $2 billion and is planning to expand the size of its $100 million mezzanine fund. The firm is also looking at options of raising a fund that will invest only in listed securities.