Tag: debt fund

Kotak Investment Advisors, Allianz Investment Management ink pact to invest in India’s private credit market

Banking & Finance

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Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (KIAL) has entered into a partnership with Allianz Investment Management SE, the investment management arm of insurer Allianz Group, to invest in the Indian private credit market.

In February 2021, Allianz made its maiden credit investment of $150 million in KIAL’s 11th Real Estate Debt Fund that achieved a closure of $380 million. KIAL’s Real Estate Fund primarily focuses on financing early- and late-stage real estate projects across the country.

Also read: Kotak’s AIF sees opportunity in real estate sector

Allianz’ total private credit investments in India so far is about $650 million and the firm is looking to increase it to $1 billion in 2021.

KIAL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, focuses on the group’s alternate assets businesses.

“Kotak Investment Advisors’ partnership with Allianz is indeed momentous not only for us, but also for the Indian alternate asset management industry. As a growth economy, the Indian economy’s capital needs are spread across the spectrum of equity and credit. Our partnership blends on the strength of two partners. Allianz brings with it the much-wanted large package of dry powder and KIAL has the expertise in identifying the right opportunities as and when they arise in India,” Uday Kotak, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Kotak Mahindra Bank, said.

“India is one of the largest private debt markets in Asia and fits well into our portfolio as a high-quality diversifier. The real estate players in India are struggling to get access to traditional lending. We believe in the long-term potential of the sector in India that presents a favourable risk-reward ratio for private credit. We are excited to partner with Kotak, one of India’s most trusted investment managers, to provide the much-needed debt capital to accelerate completion of early- and late-stage real estate projects in India,” Sebastian Schroff, Global Head of Private Debt at Allianz Investment Management, said.

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Franklin e-vote: Scrutiniser’s report raises more doubts on the process

Banking & Finance

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Raising further doubts over the ‘fairness’ of the e-voting process at Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund (FTMF), Mumbai law firm J Sagar Associates (JSA), which was appointed the ‘scrutiniser’, said it cannot vouch for the accuracy of the entire process.

JSA said in its report, seen by BusinessLine, that it relied on the voting data provided by KFin Tech, the company that provided the voting platform, and has not conducted any investigation or examination on its own into the data or the voting process.

“We have not investigated or verified the accuracy of the facts available and have not made any searches or any other independent investigation with any third party… we have not verified any information provided to us from any information which is either available in public domain or based on any other document,” JSA said in its disclosure.

Debt schemes

The e-voting was conducted during the last week of December after the Supreme Court asked FTMF to seek investor consent to wind-up the six debt schemes. While Franklin said that over 90 per cent of the votes was in favour of shutting down the schemes, several questions have been raised by the SEBI-appointed observer. Now, the disclosures by JSA have raised more doubts over the e-voting process.

On the question of possible duplication in the e-voting, the JSA report said, “The process was conducted by KFin online and J Sagar had no access to the details of the voting prior to the unlocking of the results. We will, therefore, be unable to make such a representation in the report.”

‘No technical error’

On the question of whether the e-voting was conducted without any technical glitches, JSA said, “We are not qualified to opine on the technical glitches. We understand from KFin that to the best of ‘their knowledge’ there was no technical error in the e-voting.”

KFin Tech provided the platform for e-voting and its role is already under scanner. On January 24, BusinessLine had reported that a forensic audit by the Central Forensic and Science Laboratory, which functions under the Home Ministry, disclosed that multiple votes were cast from the IP belonging to the servers of KFin Tech.

According to the Companies Act and guidelines of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, a scrutiniser should ensure ‘fairness’ in the e-voting process.

JSA said in its report that its role was limited to the counting of votes after they were downloaded from KFin online portal.

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