From Citi to 3i to Hindenburg's crosshairs, the many lives of banker turned investor Anil Ahuja
IPE Plus Fund, finds itself in the crosshairs of Hindenburg Research, its New Delhi-born, Singapore-based, founder and chief investment officer (CIO) Anil Ahuja finds himself in the news yet again.
Ahuja was among the first to make a private equity bet on the Adani Group, while he was at 3i Infrastructure, which he joined in 2005. In 2007, 3i made the first investment from its Indian infrastructure fund, paying $227 million (Rs897 crore at the time) for an undisclosed stake in Adani Power Ltd, then a fully-owned subsidiary of flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd. According to a TOI report, with the enterprise value of Adani Power pegged at Rs 10,850 crore, 3i's equity stake in Adani Power worked out to around 8%. This was 3i’s largest transaction in India since it started investing in the country in mid-2005. It held onto the stock for over seven years. When it sold a 2% block in the company in 2014, VC Circle calculated a 25-30% loss in pound sterling (40% in dollar terms) largely on account of sharp depreciation of the Indian currency. Ahuja left 3i in 2013 and joined IPE Plus Advisors in January 2014.
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The Adani Power investment, said people in the private equity industry, was one of the many misfires that eventually led to 3i, a London-listed company part-owned by the eponymous British private equity group, to stop investing in India in 2013, following a period of volatility and poor returns. Of the $875 million that the fund
