Temasek Holdings to invest another $9-10 billion in India in next three years.

Singapore-based Temasek Holdings expects to swell its India portfolio by another $9-10 billion over the next three years, doubling or even tripling its India share in the global portfolio, considering the increasing opportunities it sees in the world’s fifth largest economy.

At $17 billion, India currently contributes 6 per cent to the global investment company’s total portfolio of $287 billion - from 5 per cent last year and 3 per cent five years ago. “Our assessment today, basis the opportunities we are seeing, is that we can double or triple this in the next three years... we could do $9-10 billion in three years from today,” Vishesh Shrivastav, Managing Director, Investment (India) at Temasek, told businessline.

On an average, the company has been investing $1-1.5 billion in India every year and sees this pace accelerating with more opportunities. The sectors that it is betting on are healthcare, software-as-a-service, fintech companies, e-commerce, electric vehicles and electronics manufacturing services, in line with its investment trends around digitisation, sustainable living, consumption and longer life spans.

The investment firm, which has been investing in India for around two decades, follows a bottom-up approach. Recently, it closed a $2-billion plus investment in Manipal Health for a majority stake in the healthcare provider. “We are happy with the portfolio we have in India... returns have been great,” Shrivastav said. He added that the rise in per capita income, increase in purchasing power, rising consumption levels in the economy were all the reasons for the firm being positive about India. Stable government policies, ease of doing business as well as better quality of entrepreneurs and companies “give us great enthusiasm”.

HBL