Suven has been 50% owned by Advent since 2022 acquisition, with the remaining with public and institutional shareholders while Cohance is wholly owned by the PE group. Now post merger, Advent will own 66.7% in the combined entity and the public shareholders the rest.
The situation is worse in the case of the Indian IT industry, with none of the 54 companies in the NSE-1000 index having a female CEO. Market leader TCS, which employs more than 200,000 women (constituting over a third of its workforce), has no women in its key managerial personnel (KMPs), as per its annual report. In fact, among the top 5 IT companies, only Wipro has a woman in a KMP role - it appointed Aparna Iyer as CFO in September last year.
Advent International, the US private equity firm behind some of the biggest leveraged buyouts and conglomerate carve-outs, including the ₹17.2-billion acquisition of Thyssenkrupps elevator business in 2020 along with co-investors and the 1.8 billion joint takeover of Royal Bank of Scotlands payments business, Worldpay, believes India is among the worlds most attractive markets where investments of up to $10 billion in the next five years are likely.
Advent International believes that Indian valuations are not a barrier to making deals, as they are relative to growth opportunities and risk returns. The firm views the premium valuations in India as a reflection of the significant growth opportunities and the relative attractiveness of the market. Last year alone, it invested $7 billion in new opportunities ranging from cybersecurity to pharma, but more importantly, realised $8.4 billion via exits — higher than their previous five-year average of $5.7 billion.
Suven Pharmaceuticals is a listed CDMO and Cohance Lifesciences is an unlisted API and CDMO platform. Both are part of private equity firm Advent International s India portfolio.