Mandala Capital commits $24m to India cold chain business

The PE firm has purchased INR300 million in equity shares, with the remaining capital to be committed through a subscription to non-convertible bonds. The new funding will enable the cold chain unit - known as Gati Kausar - to build a nationwide network of warehouses over the next three years, offering integrated cold chain logistics and supply chain management.

Gati Kausar, which posted total income of INR94.1 million for the second quarter of the 2015 financial year, transports refrigerated goods for customers in the healthcare, meat and poultry, bio-pharma, frozen and fresh produce, dairy, organized retail and quick service restaurant industries.

The company has a fleet of approximately 200 refrigerated vehicles and delivers 200,000 tons of goods each year.

"The investment in Gati Kausar will give us the impetus to position ourselves as the end-to-end solution provider for the cold chain industry. We are confident that with the expansion in the cold warehouses across the country in the next three years, we will emerge leaders in this sector too," Mahendra Agarwal, CEO and founder of Gati, in a statement.

Mandala is a South Asia-focused private equity firm that invests in the agricultural sector. In 2012, it entered into a joint venture with Australia's Water Resources Group that will target the desalination opportunities in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Earlier this year, Snowman Logistics - the PE-backed cold chain unit of Gateway Distriparks - raised INR1.97 billion through a substantially oversubscribed domestic IPO. The company's backers include Norwest Venture Partners and International Finance Corporation (IFC), while Faering Capital invested via the public offering.

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• Topics
• Expansion
• South Asia
• Industrials
• Logistics
• Transportation
• India
• Growth capital