Edelweiss Alternatives wraps up fundraising for third special-situations fund

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Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd, said on Monday it has wrapped up fundraising for its third special-situations fund. The alternative investment firm has raised $1 billion (about ₹8,000 crore) and has so far invested over 40% of this across 40 deals. Special situations funds are not designed for long-term investment but are instead a way for businesses to access working capital relatively quickly and easily.

The fund had a target corpus of $1 billion and with a green-shoe option of $500 million. It was launched last October and mopped up $425 million for its first close from global institutional investors, including insurance companies, pension funds, and high-net-worth individuals and family offices in India. The firm said that the new fund has an active pipeline of deals valued at about $480 million.

So far it has invested in sectors such as roads, steel, paper, hotels, leased offices and real estate. “We expect the private credit market to grow from its current size of $14 billion to $100 billion over the next decade as India doubles its GDP to $7 trillion. As a brand, we will continue to strive to deliver not only superior risk-adjusted returns across our businesses but also focus on providing continuous and consistent yield/income to our clients every year and creating value for all stakeholders while fostering job creation and protection," said Venkat Ramaswamy, vice chairman at the Edelweiss Group.

The third fund raised a smaller corpus than the previous special-situations fund, which garnered about $1.3 billion when it closed in January 2019. That was the largest fundraise in alternatives in India, with Canadian pension fund CDPQ as one of the key investors. The second fund has deployed over $1.2 billion across