Our India deal pipeline for 2024 is $5 bn, volumes have ramped up unprecedently: Jean Salata, EQT Chairman
EQT. That in turn is translating to unprecedented deal volumes.
“It's one of the most active deal pipelines we've ever had here,” said Jean Salata, Chairperson EQT Asia. “We're looking at deals worth $5 billion that could close before the end of this calendar year. It's really, it's really ramped up. A single deal we are looking at is $2. 5 billion, and there's several others that are sort of in the $1 billion range.”
India has been the single largest geography for the firm’s Asian investment programme by far, representing about 40% of the total portfolio, Salata said. It’s also the strongest performing geography.
Salata, who grew up in Chile, studied in US and now works out of Hong Kong had more numbers to underpin the growing significance of this market. In 2013, he said, the private equity market in India was a $10 billion dollars. “ Last year, it was something like $30 billion.” That’s a three-times jump in a decade. “Between now and 2030, it could easily double to be a $60 billion or even a $70 billion. The size of the market, and the absolute dollars it is getting is much, much bigger.” Thus creating a much bigger opportunity set for buyout funds to pursue. “The percentage of control deals or the percentage of equity in each deal is also increasing. So the, the amount of equity that you're able to deploy into companies is also growing.”
It is no surprise then that the firm has been the biggest deployer of capital in recent years in the country, outpacing all their global buyout private equity peers
