Moelis India CEO Girotra sees private credit surging, bets on AI and data centre deals

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India is seeing a surge in private credit, and its flexibility compared to traditional bank loans is fuelling higher risk appetite in the country's deals environment, according to a top executive at a global investment bank. "India's private credit market is booming," Manisha Girotra, chief executive of Moelis India, told Mint.

Since private credit is more flexible on the cap table, it can be structured to reflect individual risk appetites, she said. "Banks, especially global ones, are competing very hard to fund mergers and acquisitions, but you will see more private credit come into the picture," Girotra added. To be sure, compared with the rest of the world, India's private credit market is very small.

According to S&P Global, the country's private credit market had estimated assets under management of $25-30 billion as of FY25-end, representing 1.2% of the overall corporate lending sector. Girotra's bullishness on the private credit market can also be attributed to the fact that in India, private credit yields typically range from 14% to 22%. This is substantially higher than the average yield of 8% to 10% for banks and 10% to 13% for finance companies in India, according to S&P Global's 2025 report.

"These private credit players are offering real, huge flexibility," Girotra said, pointing to the example of Adani Airports Holdings Ltd. When Adani's Mumbai International Airport first raised private credit in 2021 as a greenfield project, options were limited. Four years later, as the project neared operation, it refinanced the $750 million debt facility for a second time with private credit lenders led by Apollo-managed funds.