IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd Stock Analysis

IL&FS Investment Managers, a subsidiary of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), is one of the oldest and largest private equity fund managers in India, with over $1.9 bn under management.

Established in 1989, IIML has been an early and in many instances, the first investor across various sectors such as Telecom, City Gas Distribution, Shipyards, Retail, and Media. Funds managed by IIML now span General Purpose Private Equity, Real Estate and Infrastructure.

Investors to IIML managed funds include most of the major Indian banks & institutions, and marquee global institutional Investors including major US pension funds, endowments and foundations.

IIML is listed on the National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The origins of IIML date back to 1989 when it was founded as Credit Capital Venture Fund (India) Limited (CCVF), an affiliate of Lazard Brothers. CCVF was the first private sector venture capital company in India, and managed a number of small sector focused funds apart from investing its own proprietary capital.

Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) acquired CCVF in 1996, completed an intensive management and financial re-structuring, merged its own private equity business into CCVF and renamed it IL&FS Investment Managers Limited (IIML).

As of March 2008, IL&FS retains management control of IIML with a shareholding of 53%. The remaining ownership resides with IIML directors and employees (7%) and with the public 40%.

The company operates in mainly three verticals:

• Private Equity- IIML has been a seasoned provider of private equity capital to companies across sectors. Starting with the AIG India Sectoral Equity Fund in late 90’s, when IIML became the earliest investors into the then nascent retail sector, IIML’s private equity practice has led investments across a range of sectors – sunrise areas like pharmaceutical research, high-end telecom technology product development, media production services, technology led CRM and news services to traditional sectors such as textiles, drug manufacturing, construction, processed foods, component and tool fabrication and hotels.

• Real Estate- Recognizing the latent potential and investment needs of the real estate sector, IIML was among the first to take advantage of the sector opening up to foreign investment. IIML established the first real estate focused fund – IL&FS India Realty Fund I in 2005, well before the entry of most of the rreal estate players; well before the start of the real estate cycle.

• Infrastructure- Given its parentage, IIML undertook unique and path breaking investments in the infrastructure space. IIML emerged as one of the first investors in infrastructure in late 1990s when it invested in the telecom space through the $91 mn AIG Indian Sectoral Equity Fund (AISEF). This was followed by other ‘firsts’ – first road sector investment, first energy investment, first in the rail sector.

Achievements

During the course of the last 14 years, IIML raised and managed 9 funds, which invested across the wide spectrum of the Indian economy.

Three of these Funds – AIG India Sectoral Equity Fund (Vintage : 1996), India Project Development Fund (Vintage 2000) and India Auto Ancillary Fund (Vintage 1998) – were fully divested in 2007 - 2008, providing attractive returns for their contributors. This experience across fund cycles is a unique for any Indian private equity fund manager.

Recent developments

IL&FS Investment Managers (IIML) has closed its growth equity fund at $225 million in January 2009. Tara India Fund III originally targeted $400 million, but had been cut in size by nearly half, given the economic downturn.It will provide growth capital to domestic companies across a wide range of sectors. Core target areas are spread across manufacturing, information technology, media, logistics and infrastructure services.