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Bain-Backed India Asset Manager Plans Fifth Private Credit Fund

The Mumbai skyline beyond the BandraWorli Sea Link bridge in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, May 23, 2024. Mumbai city administrators have struggled for decades to modernize India's biggest slum that houses about a million people and was the key backdrop in the Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire. Photographer: Sumit Dayal/Bloomberg (Sumit Dayal/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Bain Capital-backed 360 One WAM Ltd. plans to raise as much as 30 billion rupees ($357 million) through a private credit fund that will be its largest to date, according to people familiar with the matter.

The fund — the firm’s fifth — will invest in the performing credit of large- and mid-sized companies that are seeking to expand, said the people who asked not to be identified because the information is not yet public. It will have a base size of about 20 billion rupees, with a greenshoe option of 10 billion rupees, they added.

360 One declined to comment on the fund, when approached by Bloomberg News.

A growing pipeline of deals is nudging India’s private credit market closer to the $10 billion mark as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s infrastructure push fuels a boom in funding among mid-sized firms. Domestic firms have gained a foothold in the industry after executing a flurry of deals that helped them grab market share from global giants such as KKR & Co. and Oaktree Capital Management.

360 One’s private credit assets are approaching $1 billion after the firm closed its fourth private credit fund for 21.3 billion rupees last year, according to a statement from the company in July 2023. The new fund is open for subscriptions and will raise the targeted amount in the next few months, the people said. 

India’s mid-sized enterprises have embraced private credit because of the flexibility in structuring solutions for borrowers, according to Moody’s Ratings. Private credit “is now a major source of corporate financing among middle-market firms that have low or negative earnings, high leverage, and lack high-quality collateral,” central bank Governor Shaktikanta Das said last month.

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