By Baiju Kalesh and Manuel Baigorri
Three senior bankers at Raine Group in India, together with the nation head, are set to depart the boutique adviser to arrange a brand new funding banking agency, based on individuals accustomed to the matter.
Gaurav Mehta, a companion and head of Raine in India, and managing administrators Naveen Asopa and Girish Punjabi are departing the agency, the individuals mentioned, asking to not be recognized as a result of the knowledge is personal.
Previous to becoming a member of Raine in 2017, Mehta led India funding banking at UBS Group AG. He additionally labored at Morgan Stanley and HSBC Holdings Plc, based on his LinkedIn profile. Punjabi joined Raine in Mumbai after working at UBS and PwC. Asopa was beforehand at Morgan Stanley and PwC.
Raine co-founder Jeff Sine is now main the Mumbai workplace and increase the crew to assist push ahead a big pipeline of offers, Raine spokesman Dan Gagnier mentioned in response to a Bloomberg Information question. He declined to touch upon particular person personnel issues as a coverage.
“Over the past 12 months we have now been actively structuring our enterprise in India to assist the speed of cross-border transactions that tie into our multi-office, team-based strategy,” Gagnier mentioned, including that the corporate continues to see vital alternative for its advisory and investing mandates within the area.
Raine offers advisory companies together with mergers and acquisitions, divestitures and personal capital elevating. The New York-based agency additionally manages methods throughout development fairness and enterprise capital, with belongings underneath administration of greater than $3.1 billion.
Raine’s marquee offers in India embody the $8.5 billion three way partnership between The Walt Disney Co. and Reliance Industries Ltd. that mixed their respective digital streaming and tv belongings within the nation in 2024.
The boutique adviser has labored on sports activities offers internationally such because the England & Wales Cricket Board’s personal funding into the eight groups in The Hundred, the short-form event that’s pulling in youthful and extra family-oriented followers. It has additionally labored on transactions associated to the Indian Premier League cricket franchises.
India’s marketplace for first-time share gross sales is off to a sluggish begin in 2026, after two consecutive years of report fundraising. M&A exercise has additionally been muted, with the amount of offers plunging greater than 60% from the identical interval a 12 months in the past, based on information compiled by Bloomberg.
