Standard Chartered PE commits $37m to India's Sparkle Ocean

According to VCCircle, the funding will help finance Ocean Sparkle's capital expenditure plans.

"This investment will help in our endeavor to accelerate our growth in various marine services across ports in India," said P. Jairaj Kumar, chairman and managing director at Ocean Sparkle. "We are also confident that this equity investment would aid our access to various geographies given the bank's global presence."

As part of the investment, Rahul Raisurana, managing director at SCPE, will be joining Ocean Sparkle's board.

"The country's growing economy and growth in maritime traffic will provide a strong impetus for the growth of port infrastructure over the next decade. This will provide strong prospects for operations and managment activities at ports," said Raisurana.

MAPE Advisory Group acted as the transaction advisor.

Promoted by marine technocrats, Ocean Sparkle serves most of India's key coastal ports and has the largest tug fleet in the country. It has positioned itself as a niche business providing port operation and maintenance services. Its services span port operation and management, ship-to-ship operations and dredging.

This is not the first investment SCPE has invested in India's port industry. In June, the firm invested INR1.3 billion in Karaikal Port, a unit of Indian infrastructure and real estate company Marg Group, joining existing PE shareholders IDFC Project Equity, Ascent Capital Advisors and Jacob Ballas.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Infrastructure
• Infrastructure
• Standard Chartered Private Equity
• India
• Infrastructure India
• Logistics