Thank you!

A very big thank you to all of the sponsors of, speakers at and delegates to 2009’s 10th Anniversary Asian Private Equity & Venture Forum, India.

Although 2009 was a tough year for the PE industry worldwide, with investors in India facing their own set of challenges, we were very pleased to see a large number of the leading funds in India, together with their investors, at the conference. Indeed, the opening panel alone featured the South Asia heads of Apax, Bain Capital, Carlyle, IL&FS Investment Managers and KKR (see "programme", left).

Delegates were treated to wide-ranging discussions across a broad array of topics, which they joined with gusto. Key themes emerging from the conference were the expected impact of increased government spending in the infrastructure space, coupled with the streamlining and standardising of PPP procedures. Also on the watch-list will be changes to the tax code which may favour Singapore over Mauritius as a fund domicile.

For those who wish to stay in touch and up-to-date over the course of the year, there is now a LinkedIn Group for the conference. Upon the re-launch of AVCJ.com in Q1 2010, we will be posting relevant stories to the group. Members can also initiate their own discussions and find professionals with a shared interest in Indian PE.

We look forward to seeing you at next year's IFDA India event in Delhi, for those on the Infrastructure side, and in Mumbai from December 1-3 for the next installment of AVCJ India.

Allen Lee
Publisher
Asian Venture Capital Journal

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This year's story:

India’s newly-elected government came to power with a strong mandate for change: Infrastructure spend is expected to increase, along with various initiatives to help the rural poor, including expansion of the government’s NREG (National Rural Employment Guarantee) Scheme, which will put more spending power in the hands of India’s rural consumers. Expansion of road-building plans, from the current 2 km to 20 km a day by 2012, should help ease congestion and make the country’s supply chains operate more efficiently.

At the same time, the creation of ready-to-run projects in the power sector will make it significantly more likely that the government will hit its target of building the ultra-mega power projects (generating more than 4,000 MW each) via public-private-partnership, which will see an end to the routine brownouts that plague even the biggest of India’s cities.

Regulations governing the flow of foreign capital into the country are also expected to be relaxed although the taxation treaties which streamline that flow are being reviewed at present. Since the budget issued in July, some of the shine has gone off the stock market, but levels are still up 40% on October 2008 lows. Meanwhile GDP growth of over 6%, coupled with the recent election results have delivered a fillip to the stock market and caused industry and international institutional investors alike to heave a huge sigh of relief.