Bullish on India; will invest up to $2.5 bn in energy, infrastructure: Actis Chairman Caesar
Actis plans to deploy up to $2.5 billion in India over the next four years as the sustainable infrastructure-focused investor eyes opportunities in energy transition, digital infrastructure and logistics and warehousing sectors, Chairman and Senior Partner Torbjorn Caesar told ET.
Actis has emerged as one of the most successful infrastructure investors in India over the last decade having built and sold two large renewable energy platforms. In 2018, Actis sold its Ostro to ReNew Power and in 2022, it sold Sprng Energy to energy major Shell.
While Actis has had a successful track record of private equity investments, such as Paras Pharma in India which was acquired by Reckitt Benckiser, since Caesar took over the leadership of the firm in 2015, the investor has transitioned to focus on infrastructure investing across emerging markets.
“There are several forecasts that the infrastructure space globally will see CAGR growth rate of 12-15% and if you think about that, over 10 years, that means that the infrastructure investment is going to be three to four times the size of what it is today.
The infrastructure side of alternatives is just going to be absolutely massive,” said Caesar.
“If you look at the global economic growth over say 20 years, we will need to build another planet of power plants, because the need for electricity grows above GDP growth. And on top of that, you have the existing installed base of fossil fueled power plants that need then be transitioned into a green, zero carbon type environment.
