Posted by Mumbai: Kotak Special Situations Fund (KSSF) will invest up to Rs 1,000 crore ($ 135 million) in Sify Infinit Spaces Limited (SISL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sify.
SIS would invest these funds in its current plan of developing and executing new data centres in Mumbai, Noida, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. And for investment in renewable energy requirements for its operational and new data centres for up to Rs 4,000 crore ($ 530 million).
SISL is a leading data centre services player with 10 data centres across India. Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (KIAL) manages Kotak Special Situations Fund and whose LPs include leading Sovereign Wealth Funds and Sify Technologies Limited (Sify). KIAL is part of Kotak Mahindra Bank.
Under the transaction, the KSSF investment will be in the form of Compulsorily Convertible Debentures, which will convert into equity based on the operational performance of SIS over a specified reference period.
According to Raju Vegesna, Chairman and MD – Sify, the current capacity of the data centre industry in India is expanding at an unprecedented pace, powered by wider cloud adoption, 5G roll-out and accelerated digital transformation programmes of enterprises.
“We are delighted to partner with KSSF as a part of this journey to build world-class Data Centre facilities for our customers to benefit from the large scale digital transformation of India,” said Vegesna.
“The hyperscalers and enterprise customers have shown high confidence in colocating to our data centres over time and these engagements continue to scale. The KSSF partnership will give us access to long-term capital, beyond the present investment,” commented MP Vijay Kumar, CFO – Sify.
“We are delighted to partner with Sify to build out the data centre capacity in India and contribute to the goal of a digitally savvy India, based on the strength of Sify’s entrepreneurial capabilities and experienced management team,” said Srini Sriniwasan, MD – Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (KIAL).
“Our investment in SIS is in line with our strategy of providing capital to unique India opportunities that require flexible and customised capital solutions, which enables us to grow with our partners and participate in their success while providing value-added support and opportunistic capital in size and scale,” said Eshwar Karra, CEO -Kotak Special Situations Fund, KIAL.
Set up in early 2005, Kotak Investment Advisors Limited (KIAL) is a part of the Kotak Mahindra Bank (Kotak). It focuses on the Alternate Assets business and focuses on Kotak’s alternate assets practice and has raised/managed/advised in aggregate over $4.9 billion across different asset classes.