Northern Arc Investments exits first fund

Mumbai: Leading alternative investment fund Northern Arc Investments, an arm of Northern Arc Capital, has completely exited its first Rs 100-crore fund with 15 per cent returns. Northern Arc Investments has nine funds with a corpus of $300 million and the first one with a corpus of Rs 100 crore was launched in 2015, an exclusive credit fund focused on the microfinance space, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

Despite many headwinds that the fund and MFI sector went through, the fund on maturity delivered net returns of over 15 per cent to investors banks, insurance companies and HNIs as against a target of 13 per cent, the fund added. This is the second successful exit from the fund house, with the first being the closure of fund 3, which was announced in February 2020. The fund's investment portfolio comprised 13 companies, which in turn disbursed over 10 million end-loans to MFIs customers.

Ravi Vukkadala, Chief Executive of Northern Arc Investments, said this is their second consecutive timely exit in the last two years. Northern Arc Capital head Kshama Fernandes said at the time of its launch, the fund was an untested play in the financial inclusion space and has since served as a powerful proof-of-concept for private credit funds to successfully operate in this segment. Northern Arc Investment Managers (earlier known as IFMR Investment Managers) is a private debt fund manager overseeing over Rs 2,000 crore in investor commitments