Blackstone's India co-head leaves to run own firm
Matthew Cyriac (pictured), co-head of The Blackstone Group’s India private equity team, has left the firm to run his own asset management business.
Cyriac plans to acquire a majority stake in Florintree Advisors, a Mumbai-based investment firm that focuses on listed companies. Following the acquisition the firm will launch a new fund intended to identify and invest in companies that are underperforming and could unlock significant value after improvements in corporate governance, strategy, and other operational areas.
“India has a large number of companies that went public without requisite preparation and maturity,” Cyriac told The Economic Times. “Florintree sees an opportunity to build some of them into ‘real’ public companies through a 'friendly activist' approach where one would educate and nudge management of target companies to undertake actions they can easily do.”
Cyriac joined Blackstone in 2006 and took his current position alongside Amit Dixit in 2013. During his time as India PE co-head Cyriac has overseen several exits, including the sale of ATM management service CMS Info Systems to Baring Private Equity Asia in 2015 and the sale of farm equipment maker Sonalika International Tractors to Japanese counterpart Yanmar last year.
Several Indian PE professionals have left prominent firms recently to help lead public markets-focused funds. Earlier this year former TPG Growth partner Varun Kapur joined Indgrowth Capital to launch a sector-agnostic fund aimed at supporting listed companies in the small and mid-cap segments, while Mylen Investment, a firm founded in 2014 by Gulpreet Kohli, formerly a managing partner at ChrysCapital, is following a similar strategy.
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