W.L. Ross invests in SpiceJet

Chennai: The investment by W.L. Ross & Co in SpiceJet is its second in India, after it bought 100 per cent stake in OCM Ltd, a worsted fabric manufacturer, for Rs 170 crore ($35 million) in October 2006. OCM was a part of Birla VXL of the S.K. Birla Group.

In October 2005, W.L. Ross formed a joint venture with Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd (HDFC), India’s leading housing finance institution, to invest in corporate restructurings and turnarounds. W.L. Ross (India) Pvt Ltd, based in Mumbai, is a sub-advisor to India Asset Recovery Management Ltd — which advises various private equity funds, including the Mauritius-based $300 million India Asset Recovery Fund that W.L. Ross formed to invest in sick companies.

According to information available on the Internet, W.L. Ross was formed by Mr Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., an American investor specialising in restructuring failed companies in industries such as steel, coal, telecommunications and textiles. He specialises in leveraged buyouts. The company acquired Ohio-based International Steel Group and sold it to the Mittal Steel Company in 2005 for $4.5 billion.

W.L. Ross is now part of Invesco, a leading global investment management company with assets under management as of December 31, 2007 of $500 billion.

According to Invesco’s 2007 annual report, it acquired W.L. Ross & Co in October 2006 for an initial consideration of $134 million.
The annual report further says that the assets under management by W.L. Ross went up from $2.6 billion at the time it was acquired by Invesco to $6.8 billion as of December 31, 2007. W.L. Ross now has about $7.9 billion of assets under management.

W.L. Ross was interested in investing over Rs 1,500 crore ($350 million) in the Chennai-headquartered ailing fertiliser manufacturer Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation Ltd. This deal did not go through.