Gulf funds, family offices find value in looking east
Recent companies to achieve this include Crescent Group, one of the largest family offices in the UAE and the Middle East and North Africa region. The group plans to invest at least $150 million in India over the next few years through its growth capital and private equity platform CE Invests, focusing on mid-market deals.
Crescent, which manages assets in 25 different companies through its two main subsidiaries, Crescent Petroleum and Crescent Enterprises, plans to deploy a total of $300 million across India, Southeast Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) under its latest investment mandate. While the group has significant exposure to the US market through its venture capital arm CE Ventures, it is currently accelerating diversification into emerging markets through CE Invests. Ghada Abdelkader, senior vice president at CE-Invests, said India anchored the strategy because of its scale and compound growth. “In the Gulf Cooperation Council, we are investing in areas driven by national transformation agendas, especially in the industrial and manufacturing sectors,” he said. “Southeast Asia is further diversifying. India has very strong fundamentals and is on track to become the world’s third largest economy by 2030.”
Abdelkader said the regulatory environment is stable thanks to periodic reforms, rising consumption, rising per capita income and a strong working-age population. “When you combine these fundamentals with scale, it becomes a market we cannot afford not to invest in,” he added.
CE-Invests plans primarily direct investments, complemented by selective investments as well as by fund managers. The strategy targets four key sectors in India – consumer and retail, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, manufacturing and financial services – with average ticket sizes per transaction ranging from approximately $25 million to $75 million.
“We have a strong pipeline in the sectors we focus on, particularly those we are very excited about… We expect to close two or three deals in India this year,” said Abdelkader, who is leading the group’s expansion into India and Southeast Asia. Last year, CE-Invests made its first India deployment under the strategy, investing in office interior design services company Flipspaces by participating in a $50 million Series C round.
