Former group president of garment maker Raymond Pradeep Kumar Bhandari and capital markets veteran

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and former executive director at financial services firm Centrum group R Amarnath have teamed up to float a $100 million offshore fund that will focus on investing in small and mid cap companies.

The fund, domiciled in Cyprus, aims to capture on the growth story of the Indian economy by backing potential multi baggers amongst smaller companies which will leverage entrepreneurial talent to deliver outsized growth in the world’s second fastest growing economy.

“We have completed the fund raising for the Indus Kamdhenu fund largely from blue chip family offices of European high net worth individuals. An asset management company Cyprus Sapience Investment Managers has also been appointed as the investment manager to the fund,” Bhandari, who is now a non-executive director of Raymond, told Financial Chronicle.

The investment premise of this fund is that by focusing on the right investment opportunities, that is, the hidden jewels amongst the smaller companies the investors will achieve better returns than those got from investing in relatively slower growing large cap stocks. In the last one year while the BSE Sensex doubled in value, the BSE Mid Cap index rose at a faster pace of 149.96 per cent whereas the BSE Small Cap rose by 177.85 per cent.

The fund aims to focus on companies engaged in provisions of infrastructure support services, capital goods manufacturers, financial services companies and consumer facing companies as its focus sectors for investments. This is in keeping with the premise of leveraging the larger business potential that is being unleashed by India’s investment in infrastructure assets such as roads, ports, railways, power plants etc. Consumer spend in India too has been going up as the rising proportion of the middle class boosts consumptions and an increasingly globalised youth diaspora aim to ape the consumption standards of their Western counterparts.

Bhandari and Amarnath who has now left the Centrum group to focus full time on this venture have promoted the fund. The board of the investment manager to the fund includes apart from Bhandari and Amarnath, Nabankur Gupta another non executive director on the Raymond board and an ex group president of Raymond. Devesh Kumar, ex managing director, Centrum Broking and Amarnath ex boss too are on the board of the AMC. Kumar recently joined Fortune Financial Services India as its Group CEO and joint managing director.

Joining Raymond in August 1989, Bhandari played a key role in strategising and implementing the company's restructuring program.