INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Besides, Edelweiss itself is expected to put in $200 million.
An email sent to Edelweiss remained unanswered until publication of this
CDPQ and Allianz could not be contacted immediately.
The distressed asset fund could draw interest from sovereign funds in Middle East and
Singapore, besides university endowments and pension money managers in North America and Europe
Some Scandinavian investors, too, may pitch in.
Those investors would put in between $20 million and $100 million each, said another
source.
The fund, likely to be called Edelweiss Stress Asset Fund, may be announced as early as Thursday.
The investment is coming at a time
when India's commercial lenders are struggling with a huge pile of bad loans.
Edelweiss, which manages largest asset reconstruction
company in country, is seeking to create a large pool of capital to buy assets at a cheaper price
At present, Edelweiss manages Rs 40,000 crore of assets in ARC network.
The distressed fund is likely to have already deployed one-third of
total corpus in buying stressed assets, sources said
The rest will be invested in new opportunities.
Bulge-bracket alternative investors, such as Blackstone, KKR, Bain Capital and Apollo, have
either started their own platforms or partnered with large Indian corporates to float funds targeting distressed assets locally.
