PE firms investment drops by 70% to $763mn

Private Equity investment dropped by 70 per cent to $763 million across 47 deals during the quarter ended September 2009, according to a study by Venture Intelligence, a Chennai-based research firm focused on Private Equity and M&A transaction activity in India.“While the amount invested during the latest quarter was during the quarter was significantly lower than that during the same period last year (which witnessed $2,581 million invested across 132 deals) and also lower compared to the immediate previous quarter ($964 million across 47 deals). The latest numbers take the total PE investments in the first nine months of 2009 to $2,360 million (across 140 deals) as against the $9,479 million (across 365 deals) during the corresponding period in 2008” said Arun Natarajan, chief executive officer, Venture Intelligence India.The largest investment during third quarter 2009 was the $255 million investment by KKR (along with one of its LPs) to buy out Flextronics' residual stake in telecom software services firm Aricent. The deal accounted for a third of value of investment during the period, he added