Private equity firm Apis Partners LLP’s planned investment in L&T Infra Debt Fund (L&T IDF), a non-banking unit of engineering-to-software giant Larsen & Toubro Ltd, has been called off.
The transaction was terminated as it couldn’t be completed within the deadline, L&T Finance Holdings Ltd said in a stock-exchange filing.
L&T Finance, the financial services unit of L&T, didn’t specify any reason for the deal’s collapse.
As part of the deal, which was announced in April last year, the PE firm had proposed to pick up a stake of up to 25.1% in L&T IDF for $110 million.
As per the terms of the deal, 70% of the total investment amount was to be in the form of growth capital for L&T IDF and 30% was to be used to buy shares from existing shareholders.
Apis Partners’ investment was to be used to refinance operational infrastructure projects in India and help L&T IDF access low-cost foreign funding.
For London-based Apis, this would have been its fourth—and biggest bet—on an Indian company.
Its first reported foray was in January 2016, when it invested an undisclosed amount in Mumbai-based Electronic Payment & Services Pvt. Ltd, which offers retail banking technology and ATM services.
In August 2016, Apis, along with ICICI Venture, acquired a minority stake in Star Health and Allied Insurance Co, for $47 million. In August 2018, Apis agreed to exit its investment in Star Health, as a consortium of PE firms including WestBridge Capital and Madison Capital and well-known stock market investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala bought the insurer.
Apis’ third India investment came in December 2017 when it led a consortium of investors that pumped $60 million into green energy startup Green Planet, which provides off-grid solar products or loans for buying them.
Apis was founded by Matteo Stefanel and Udayan Goyal in April 2014. In March 2017, it made a final close for its Apis Growth Fund-I with commitments of $287 million. The second fund has a target corpus of $400 million with a hard cap of $500 million. Last year, International Finance Corporation, the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank, came in as a limited partner in the second fund.
