US-based PE Firm Exits Repco Home Finance, Garners Rs 471 Crore

Mumbai: US-based private equity firm Carlyle Group has offloaded its entire 17.74 per cent stake in Chennai-based Repco Home Finance Ltd for over Rs 471 crore.

The sale marks Carlye's final exit from the housing financing firm where it once held a 49 per cent stake.

First Carlyle Growth VI, the growth investment fund of private equity major Carlyle, sold a total of 1.10 crore shares in Repco through open market route on Thursday, representing a 17.74 per cent stake.

The shares were offloaded on an average price of Rs 427.56 valuing the transaction at Rs 471.50 crore. The stake sale has reaped many-fold gains to Carlyle.

The buyers included DSP Blackrock, Nomura India, FT India Prima Fund, Jupiter India, and SmallCapWorld Fund.

The private equity firm had invested about Rs 108 crore in Repco during 2007 and 2009, with Carlyle Asia Growth Fund picking up an around 49 per cent stake in the company.

Through Repco's IPO process, launched in March 2013, Carlyle had diluted a small portion of its stake. Later, the private equity firm had sold some of its holding to Wolfensohn Capital Partners and Creador.

Repco was incorporated in 2000 as a subsidiary of Repatriates Co-operative Finance & Development Bank Limited, a government of India enterprise.

It operates 91 branches and 32 satellite centres in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, West Bengal and Puducherry.

Shares in Repco, on Friday, ended at Rs 466.80 apiece on the BSE, down 2.20 per cent from the previous close.