Indian private equity fund lures Goldman veteran

Goldman Sachs managing director, Atul Kapur has succumbed to the lure of Goldman's own BRICs growth story and is moving to Mumbai as chief investment office of Indivision. Indivision is the Pantaloon-backed private equity fund which forms part of PantaloonÆs strategy to build an all-encompassing business in the financial services arena in India called Future Group.

Kapur had been with Goldman Sachs for 12 years and was appointed managing director in October, 2000. He was with the firmÆs Principal Investment Area (PIA) based in Europe and was running the proprietary investments business for that region. Prior to that Kapur was with PIA in Asia, based in Singapore.

Kapur joins Goldman Sachs colleague Sameer Sain and ex-CEO, Coca Cola India, Sanjiv Gupta who are joint-CEOs at Indivision. Indivision has just started raising money with a target of $350-400 million. Commenting on the appointment Sain says: ôWe are thrilled to have someone of AtulÆs background and experience come on board. This affirms our belief that our vision at Future Group is shared by top notch talent who will join us because they buy into what we are trying to do.ö

Kapur worked in corporate development with Pacific Century Group and with STAR TV in Hong Kong before he joined Goldman Sachs in 1994. Kapur is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and received a bachelors degree in commerce from Delhi University.

For more on Pantaloon, see the March issue of FinanceAsia, which features a profile of the company.