At a time when volatility in the equity markets and the high-interest rate environment are making it difficult for companies in India to raise equity funding, True North, one of the oldest private equity (PE) firms in India, is raising capital for its new private credit fund.
It has so far raised Rs 1,000 crore ($120 million) from limited partners (LPs) for the vehicle—True North Performing Credit Regular Income Fund—which has a total targeted corpus of Rs 1,250 crore.
“Ours is an all-domestic LP fund,” Kapil Singhal, Managing Partner, Private Credit at True North, told DealStreetAsia in an interview, highlighting how the firm has raised local capital for the first time, having garnered the backing of domestic insurance companies, large family offices, and HNIs.
Given that True North is one of the oldest PE firms in India, its maiden private credit fund will benefit immensely from the firm’s deep understanding of the mid-market landscape, having evaluated 5,000 companies, Singhal said.
The private credit fund has already invested in four companies to date, DealStreetAsia had reported in September.
Meanwhile, on the private equity side, True North is currently in talks with LPs to raise its seventh fund. True North had launched Fund VI in late 2017 with a hard cap of $1.1 billion, which was subsequently revised down to $800 million and closed at $600 million. Its fifth fund had raised $700 million.
“We run both our businesses—private credit and PE—fiercely independently. The investment teams are completely independent with no overlap,” said Singhal. “Credit business will, however, love to invest in any of our past True North PE-invested companies, in which we have no current PE investments. Those are some of the companies to do business with,” Singhal said.
Edited excerpts of the interview with Singhal.
