February recorded the maximum private equity exits in the past 12 months,providing a brief but much-needed relief to the PE industry battling with muted exits,low internal rate of returns and volatile investment climate. During the month,PE investors encashed investments worth $826 million in as many as 16 deals. Interestingly,nearly half of them,amounting for 90 per cent of the total value,were open-market exits. As per VCCEdge data,PE investors offloaded stakes worth $751.45 million across eight open market transactions. Given that the recent market rally opened the window for these exits,experts are keeping fingers crossed. Mayank Rastogi,partner,private equity and transaction advisory services,Ernst & Young,points out that not much should be read into these exits. These are all opportunist exits coinciding with the Sensex peaking after almost a year. The benchmark Sensex has risen about 15 per cent in 2012. It stayed above 17,300 points throughout February,and reached a seven-month high of 18,428.61 points on February 21. Deepak Mohoni of trendwatchindia.com predicts the year will witness a fair share of rallies and corrections for the public market,which is primarily FII-driven. The banking and financial services sector (BFSI) saw maximum activity during the month. Temasek Holdings Advisors cashed out of ICICI Bank for $298 million,making it the biggest exit for the month. Next in line was Carlyle Asia Partners exiting Housing Development Finance Corporation for $270.38 million. Warburg Pincus India exited Kotak Mahindra Bank for $171.18 million counting as another significant banking exit seen during the month. Vaibhav Agrawal,vice-president of research (banking),Angel Broking confirms that banking sector exits are more about the capital market getting slightly better,as the last one year did not provide the optimal window. Agrawal elaborates that the HDFC exit was due for a while,and may not have so much to do with the companys fundamentals. FE
