Roads & renewables: KKR to raise infra bet in India

Major portion of $6.4 billion Asia-Pacific fund set to be routed to India

- DEV CHATTERJEE

KKR & Co is planning to invest a significant portion of its new $6.4 billion Asia-focused fund in the Indian infrastructure sector, including roads, highways, and renewables. The New York-based private equity major has already invested $3 billion in the Indian infrastructure space as part of its total $10 billion investment in the country.

The Asia Pacific Infrastructure Investors II Fund, which closed on February 1, has identified India, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand for the deployment of funds. "Our first Asia fund invested approximately 30 per cent of its $3.9 billion corpus in the Indian infrastructure sector, and we plan to follow a similar pattern as India continues to be our focus area," said Hardik Shah, partner at KKR & Co, in a select media briefing here. Shah, who joined KKR's infrastructure vertical from Canada's Brookfield in 2019, noted that China is not a focus for the new fund because the private equity sees more opportunity in other markets.

Further stressing KKR's bullishness on India, Henry H McVey, the PE major's head of global macro and asset allocation, in a note wrote that India is likely to contribute a fifth of the global incremental growth for the next 5-7 years and the country can be the one of the largest investment arenas to deploy capital in Asia if it continues to stay the course on its current reform-minded approach.