Rajesh Abraham

Mumbai , March 2

Private equity fund India Development Fund, promoted by IDFC Private Equity, will have 8 per cent stake in the Delhi airport modernisation project, which was awarded to the GMR Group recently.

"We will have 8 per cent stake in the Delhi airport project," Mr Luis Miranda, President and CEO, IDFC Private Equity, told Business Line. However, he refused to divulge the amount involved, saying that the exact amount will be known only after the completion of the project.

The GMR group formed a consortium along with Fraport (which operates Frankfurt airport), Malaysia airport and IDFC for the Delhi airport modernisation project.

IDFC Private Equity's India Development Fund, which was raised from domestic financial institutions in 2003, has a total corpus of $200 million. After a couple of more deals, expected shortly, the entire corpus would get fully invested. One investment would be in the real estate sector in north India, he said.

Earlier, the India Development Fund (IDF) had taken equity stakes in GMR Energy (Rs 100 crore), Gujarat State Petronet (Rs 90 crore), Hotel Leelaventure (Rs 90 crore), Chalet Hotels (Rs 50 crore) and Gujarat Pipav Port (Rs 128 crore).

The IDFC sold a small stake in Gujarat State Petronet during its recent IPO, booking profits at Rs 37, having taken 20 per cent stake in the company at Rs 12.50 a share.

Second fund

Meanwhile, IDFC Private Equity hopes to raise a total of $350 million from foreign and domestic institutions for its second private equity infrastructure fund IDFC Private Equity Fund-2, Mr Miranda said.

"We have raised about $233 million as of now," he said, adding that the fund will close on March 31. Significantly, about 70 per cent of the corpus of the second fund will come from overseas institutions, mainly from the US, Europe and Asia. The second fund is expected to make its first deal by March 31, which will be in the healthcare sector, Mr Miranda said, without elaborating further.

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