I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU

IT WOULDN’T BE HYPERBOLE TO CALL WARBURG PINCUS A ROUGH-WEATHER FRIEND FOR INDIAN ENTREPRENEURS. OVER 25 YEARS, THE PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM HAS SHOWN ITS WILLINGNESS TO RIDE OUT THE STORM WITH ITS INVESTEES.

- Neha Bothra

BACK IN 2002, JUST a few months after Bharti Airtel listed on the bourses (the then Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange), the telecom major had to deal with a crisis of confidence from its investors. Its stock price had tanked by over 50% leading to an erosion of faith from certain quarters, remembers chairman and managing director Sunil Bharti Mittal. “A much smaller investor with hardly $20 million in Airtel was fretting and worrying about its investment,” he tells Fortune India, contrasting it to his big-ticket investor’s unshaken belief. “Warburg Pincus put their arms around us to say, ‘Don’t even look at the stock price and just carry on doing what you are doing. We are not going to put any pressure on you just because our equity investment has been wiped out’.”

The U.S.-based private equity (PE) firm’s confidence was validated in 2005 when it finally exited its Airtel investment with a profit of over $1.8 billion. “The whole world was stunned,” recalls Mittal, “and then the private equity market [in India] just opened up.”

Significantly for Warburg Pincus, this show of faith also cemented its position as a go-to PE player for Indian entrepreneurs.

“I think the key is learning how to survive success and failure since you experience both during the life cycle of investment because life is never a straight line,” Charles ‘Chip’ Kaye, global co-chief executive officer, Warburg Pincus, tells Fortune India on a sunny, winter afternoon in Mumbai.

“Everybody thought that it [Bharti Airtel] is some rocket ship. But the reality is… no one knows of half of Sunil Mittal’s critical times, and it’s in moments like these that we have to be deeply supportive.”