News: SBI Capital plans 3 venture funds with foreign allies

(RTR 18/07/2006) - SBI Capital Markets Ltd. plans to launch 3 venture funds in association with three different foreign banks or institutions, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The funds would invest in primarily mid-cap sectors, emerging industries and infrastructure, Managing Director Indrajit Gupta said.

Typically, the investment would be made in unlisted companies for at least seven years.

"We are not a private equity player who will look at the IPO route as an exit option," Gupta said.

"We will look at investing in listed companies in a very limited manner (but) it will not exceed 10-15 percent of our total corpus," he said.

The company is a unit of the country's largest lender, State Bank of India.