Sanaka India Advisors
Sanaka India is part of the Sanaka Group founded by Mr Shankar Narayanan, a Private Equity veteran with over 26 years of experience of investing in India and other Asian countries. His experience includes identifying, building, operating and managing investments in companies across industry sectors and geographies. In the past, Shankar Narayanan has provided governance and guidance on strategy to the investee companies through leadership positions and active board memberships.
Sanaka India seeks to identify investment opportunities that could leverage Shankar Narayanan’s experience and expertise of working alongside entrepreneurs and management teams to help scale up such companies and create value.
Sanaka India brings a differentiated investment and value creation strategy to the mid-market private equity landscape. Sanaka India’s philosophy is derived from extensive experience of its founder, Shankar Narayanan, and is based on the belief that successful private equity investment requires a strong team having relevant skill sets & experience and the mindset to work alongside founders and management teams to create value.
Sanaka India believes that India, as a developing economy and promising ecosystem for entrepreneurship, offers high growth potential across several business segments and industry verticals. Sanaka India seeks to reach out to and identify high quality entrepreneurs and management teams of mid-sized companies that seek to benefit from new market opportunities within India or other economies. Sanaka India will harness its vast network of relationships to provide wide ranging access to companies and act as a catalyst in transforming the company and setting it off on an accelerated growth trajectory.
Sanaka Group seeks to drive long-term value creation through a well-defined operational value add approach, improved market access, enhanced strategic focus and emphasis on corporate governance.
Shankar Narayanan
Founder
Mr Shankar Narayanan was formerly the Managing Director and Co-Head of the Asia Growth Capital team of Carlyle, a global PE fund, responsible for advising on growth capital investments in Asia. Shankar Narayanan has been in private equity since 1993 with the unique distinction of having run some of the investee companies as a CEO. He has on-the-ground work experience in India which allows him to have a very practical perspective of growth prospects and challenges across industries.
Since joining Carlyle in 2004, Shankar Narayanan has advised on investments such as Claris Lifesciences, Elitecore Technologies, Repco Home Finance, Tirumala Milk Products, Visen Industries, Value & Budget Housing Corporation (VBHC), Edelweiss Financial Services, South Indian Bank, Cyient, and Allsec Technologies. Shankar Narayanan has also advised on successful exits from Tirumala, Elitecore, Edelweiss, Repco and Claris. He was also actively involved in Managing the fund’s investments and exits in Newgen Knowledge Works, Learning Mate Solutions, QuEST and Sharekhan.
Shankar Narayanan started his PE career as MD & CEO of Hathway Investments. While at Hathway, Shankar was involved in a number of investments including Johnson Tiles, Exide Industries, Hathway Cable, Asianet Satellite Communications and served on the boards of all these companies. After Hathway, Shankar Narayanan was associated with The Chatterjee Group (TCG) and Deutsche Bank Capital Partners in Hong Kong, and ICICI Ventures before joining Carlyle.
Shankar Narayanan is academically qualified with a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) from XLRI Jamshedpur, where he topped his graduating class in the area of finance and accounting. He also holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.
Neeraj Bhatia
Partner
Neeraj Bhatia has 25 years of experience across investing and operating environments steering investment opportunities – striking a balance between financial attractiveness and execution challenges. Neeraj was formerly the President and Chief Business Officer at National Bulk Handing Corporation Ltd (NBHC), one of India’s largest companies in the agricultural commodities space that provide financing solutions to clients.
Neeraj began his career as an equity analyst with Peregrine Capital, an Investment Bank. Neeraj subsequently moved to Hathway Investments, a family office, where he was a member of the team that was mandated to build a diversified portfolio of private companies. Neeraj later transitioned to a senior operating role at Hathway Cable and Datacom, one of the investee companies.
Afterward, Neeraj moved to British Gas’ (BG) Telecom Business as part of the leadership team. Later Citigroup Venture Capital (CVCI), a PE Fund, facilitated an MBO and bought out BG’s Interests. Neeraj played a key role in close concert with the CVCI team to broaden the product offering and widen the geographical reach of the business. In 2011, when the senior team at CVCI spun off to set up Exponentia Capital, a mid-market growth PE fund, he moved in as a part of the founders’ team. In 2015, he moved to True North and from there to True North’s fully owned investment NBHC.
Neeraj is academically qualified with a PGDM from IIM Ahmedabad with a B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur.
SUNIL AGRAWAL
Director
Sunil Agrawal has over 24 years of experience in financial services and investment management across organizations – ICICI Bank, The Chatterjee Group, GVFL (formerly known as Gujarat Venture Finance Limited) and the Tata Group.
At the Tata Group, Sunil led the strategy and business planning function at Tata Communications including managing international investments. He also led the formation of two joint venture entities between Tata Capital and IFC Washington for managing collections and for the setting up of a dedicated NBFC for the cleantech sector – Tata Cleantech Capital Ltd. He led the fund-raising effort for the cleantech private equity fund from domestic as well as international investors.
In the past, Sunil has also managed proprietary book investments of Tata Capital, primarily in the auto ancillary segment. Sunil was also a part of Business Excellence team of the Tata Group and undertook assessments of Tata Projects and TRIL as part of Tata Business Excellence Management initiative. He also served as Chief Internal Auditor for business process outsourcing company – e-Nxt Financials Ltd. (later merged with Tata Business Support Services Ltd. now a part of Quess Corp).
Sunil is academically qualified as a PGDM from IIM, Bangalore with a B. Tech from IIT, Madras.
G Sivakumar
Director
G Sivakumar has around 30 years of experience in finance, compliance, business planning, and budgetary control. He has played an instrumental role in collaborating with businesses to support their scale-up and expansion across different continents.
Sivakumar served as the Group CFO of Financial Software and Systems, a major payment systems company.
He was also the lead member of the team that raised capital from private equity investors across rounds of investment. Sivakumar has also facilitated the exit of a PE investor through a secondary sale process.
He is a Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant. He also holds a B Com degree from the University of Madras.
HARI NARAYAN
Director
Hari has 15 years of experience in investment management across organisations – Americorp Capital (a family office), Oman India Joint Investment Fund and Peepul Capital. Hari has made several investments across sectors and also has deep operating experience and has held leadership roles in portfolio companies where he has focussed on driving growth and improving profitability.
Hari started his career as an analyst at Americorp Capital. Hari then moved to Oman India Joint Investment Fund as part of the initial team and played a key role in the growth of the Fund. Hari was part of investment transactions in Solar Industries, Data Patterns, HBL Power systems, GSP Crop Sciences and ING Vysya bank.
Hari then moved to Peepul Capital where he was closely associated with some of the leading consumer brands in the country. Hari held leadership positions in Banjaras, a personal care products company and in Oriental Cuisines, a food services business based in South India.
Hari is academically qualified with a PGDM from IIM, Indore and a B.Tech. from PSG college of Technology, Coimbatore.
Sahil H. Jain
Sahil has over 5 years of experience in the finance industry. He was previously employed at NeoGrowth, where he was part of the Strategy team and worked closely with the CEO on various key projects and fund-raising initiatives for the firm. He led the interaction with existing investors and potential investors.
Prior to NeoGrowth, Sahil was employed at Grant Thornton in the assurance function, where he worked with clients from various businesses such as private Funds (AIF), Market Research organizations, Outsourced Business services etc.
Sahil is academically qualified with PGPM from Indian School of Business (ISB). Further is also a CFA Holder and a Chartered Accountant having graduated from Mithibai College, Mumbai.
Akshat Patodia
Akshat has over 3 years of experience in assurance and transaction diligence. Akshat has worked in the assurance division at the EY Network (S.R Batliboi) and has later moved to the transaction diligence vertical at EY.
When at the assurance division at EY, Akshat worked on the Audit of several large conglomerates across diverse sectors both for the statutory audit and for the audit related to IPO documentation. Later, at EY, Akshat was in the transaction diligence vertical, conducting financial due diligence for various companies in the advanced manufacturing and infrastructure sector.
Akshat is academically qualified as a Chartered Accountant (Rank Holder), and has completed his graduation from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. He is currently pursuing his CFA Charter.
Disclosures
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Sanaka India Advisors LLP
1208 A, 13th Floor, Parinee Crescenzo,
Behind MCA, G Block, Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra (East),
Mumbai – 400051
Ph: +912248891700
Email: contact@sanakacapital.com
LLP IN: AAL 7875
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