Rajeev Chandrasekhar's official website - Member of Parliament

 

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

Ministry of Finance

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

RAJYA SABHA

UNSTARRED QUESTION NO 558

TO BE ANSWERED ON TUESDAY, MARCH 04, 2008

 Private Equity Funds

558.

SHRI RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR

Will the Minister of FINANCE be pleased to state:-

(a) whether it is a fact that there is a large number of unlisted foreign and domestic private equity funds operating and investing in India;

(b) if so, who is responsible for overseeing and regulating such funds; and

(c) what is Government’s policy concerning this, especially since many private equity funds are now directly or indirectly being funded by Sovereign Funds that belong to specific Governments?

ANSWER

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE

(SHRI PAWAN KUMAR BANSAL)

(a) The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has informed that at present, there are 103 Venture Capital Funds, 97 Foreign Venture Capital Investors and 1300 Foreign Financial Institutions registered under the SEBI regulations. However, the data regarding number of private equity (PE) funds, which may operate through various routes, listed or unlisted, is not available with SEBI.

(b) and (c): SEBI registers and regulates the venture capital funds under the SEBI (Venture Capital Funds) Regulations 1996, Foreign venture capital investors under the SEBI (Foreign Venture Capital Investors) Regulations, 2000 and Foreign Institutional Investors under the SEBI (Foreign Institutional Investors) Regulations, 1995. The term private equity is a broader term which encompasses various forms of investments and has not been defined under the SEBI regulations. However, the private equity funds, as investors in the securities markets, are subject to the same regulations of SEBI as other investors.

Top