Wednesday, January 7, 2015

KKR and GIC Partner for Real Estate Structured Lending Platform in India

KKR, a leading global investment firm, today announced it has established a non-banking financial company (“NBFC”) that will provide structured credit solutions to the real estate sector in India, with an investment from GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.

“The launch of the India-focused NBFC marks a milestone for our global real estate platform, and we are thrilled to bring long-term capital to India’s real estate sector,” said Ralph Rosenberg, Global Head of KKR Real Estate. “We are excited to assist a sector that is still under-built. While many lenders provide debt to this sector, there is a need for solution-oriented, non-dilutive capital for property developers. We intend to fill that gap and contribute to the continued development of India’s residential and commercial real estate sectors.”

This is KKR’s second NBFC in India. Through its first, KKR expanded its capabilities to provide solutions across the capital structure. KKR has seen that India’s large and growing business community welcomes non-traditional entities that allow companies to tap into a more sophisticated capital markets system and provide them with greater choice beyond traditional equity or bank loans. Since 2009, KKR has extended more than US$2 billion of structured financing to 21 business groups in India through its credit and capital markets business.

“This sector-focused NBFC further enables KKR to provide tailored financing solutions to companies, and adds to our established private equity and lending businesses in India,” said Sanjay Nayar, CEO of KKR India. “We aim to provide companies with value beyond capital alone in a way that is best suited to their needs. This real estate NBFC is our newest platform to achieve our goal in supporting good management teams to help their companies grow.”

During 2014, KKR initiated the real estate business in India by structuring and participating in three transactions with an aggregate amount of approximately US$190 million.

In private equity, KKR has been active in India since 2006, with total equity investments exceeding US$1.5 billion.

Since launching a dedicated real estate platform in 2011, KKR has committed over US$1.8 billion of equity to 29 real estate transactions in the US, Europe and Asia.