Moneyspinners: Renuka Ramnath (centre) with her core investment team at ICICI Venture, comprising Kishore Gotety (left), Sumit Chandwani (right) and Bala Deshpande

The falling evening light catches a bustle of activity in the third floor flat of Radhika Apartments, a stone's throw from Mumbai's fabled Siddhi Vinayak Temple. Ergonomic chairs are being wheeled in, Chesterfield sofas analysed threadbare. There's talk of traditional wooden veneers. And new-age brushed steel ones. Amongst the assorted designers, consultants and myriad opinions a dusky woman stands quietly, taking it all in, asking a few pointed questions here and there, but otherwise gazing intently at the blueprints in front of her. This is her temporary home, as her flat on the seventh floor of the same building is being redone. Her voice, when she speaks, is soft, but all heads instantly turn towards her. "I want it to be luxurious yet conservative and exude solid respectability," she says. She is sporting faded blue jeans and a non-descript yellow cotton T-shirt, and five years ago, few people had heard of her. Today, of course, is another thing altogether. Everyone knows Renuka Ramnath.

The 42-year-old heads the largest domestic private equity fund and the 12,000 square feet office at Mumbai's Stanrose House, the one she is so painstakingly putting together, will be the new home for ICICI Venture Funds Management Company and the Rs 2,500 crore of assets it manages. "We're just warming up," says Ramnath. "The next step is to help Indian companies become global giants." There's no denying the fact that the target the 14-year-old subsidiary of ICICI Bank has set for itself is indeed world class: Rs 8,800 crore ($2 billion) of assets by 2007, brought in by larger, innovative and more aggressive deals. Management buyouts, restructuring, cross-border deals, everything is on ICICI Venture's radar. A quick checklist of the big-ticket deals the company has recently done would remove any doubts among the skeptical few: Welspun, Arvind Brands and TV Today.

Retail Early Bird Strategy

Subhiksha's R. Subramanian: Unique opportunity Back in 2000, when ICICI venture picked up a stake in a little-known discount retailer based in Chennai called Subhiksha Trading Services, it was doing what no other private equity investor was willing to do: bet on India's nascent and shaky organised retail industry. So why did ICICI Venture take the plunge? For one, it realised that retail was a promising industry and in that food and grocery seemed the most promising segment because they accounted for more than half of the consumer rupee. For another, less than 5 per cent of the segment was in the organised sector, implying a tremendous potential for growth. As for the choice of Subhiksha over others, it was settled by the retail chain's unique discounting model. "They were the first to spot the opportunities in this sector," says R. Subramanian, Subhiksha's Managing Director and a winner of the BT Young Super Performer Award for 2004. Given that FDI could soon be allowed into retail, ICICI Venture may just end up laughing all the way to the bank on its brave investment.

When hand-picked by ICICI CEO K.V. Kamath- incidentally, he lives on the twelfth floor of Radhika Apartments-four years ago to take over the fund, Ramnath was a complete outsider to the then-arcane world of venture capitalists. "I barely knew what venture capitalists really did, forget about possessing the expertise to run a fund," she chuckles. But while she may never have headed a fund before, rising to new challenges is something she has being training for all her life. First, as one of three siblings and then, as the only girl in her textile engineering classes. "I just always had to be the best," she confesses. Academically brilliant-she was always top of the class in school- it was only when she was enrolled in B-school that she found her true calling: finance and ICICI, not necessarily in that order. " I realised that finance, accounts, and taxes all came very easily to me and after a summer training assignment at ICICI-even then, it was one of the most glamorous places to work in-I had found the place to make my dreams come true."

Joining ICICI's merchant banking division in 1986, the initial years were tough. "I was slogging through more assignments and tighter deadlines just to prove that they could be done." It was only years later that this single-minded dedication-she returned to work a mere 11 weeks after having a baby-paid off. That's when she met her mentor, Shikha Sharma, who now heads ICICI Prudential. "I think it was while running the structured finance unit under her that I realised what it really took to run a business," says Ramnath, lessons that were to prove invaluable later.

Fellow venture capitalists, for one, seem impressed. "Renuka's very bright and professional. There's no denying that she has brought ICICI Venture on to the centrestage," says Saurabh Srivastava, Chairman, Indian Venture Capital Association, who has interacted extensively with Ramnath on the association's executive committee.

More Than Just a Venture Capitalist

Sitting in the eighth floor office of parent ICICI Bank's intelligent office in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex, Ramnath, now clad in a signature south Indian silk saree, doesn't like being called a venture capitalist. " We like to think of ourselves as an institutional private equity player, someone who acts as a bridge between needy enterprises and capital." For the uninitiated, venture capitalists typically invest in the early stages of corporate growth while private equity funds invest larger funds to meet the entire lifecycle funding needs of companies they partner with. ICICI Venture has supported close to 250 companies at various stages. And more than the width of its investments and its impressive kitty, it is the company's ability to pick potential winners time and again that makes it stand out.

Biotech Where Investors Still Fear to Tread

Subhiksha's R. Subramanian: Unique opportunity Ask any private equity investor what he thinks of biotech, and the typical answer would be "It's promising, but we aren't investing in it yet". That's because biotech is a research-intensive business and it takes a long time to come up with a product that will sell. Such concerns, however, haven't deterred ICICI Venture from investing in not one but two biotech companies: Kiran Mazumdar Shaw's Biocon and Villoo Morwala Patell's Avestha Gengraine. Biocon, which has 20 years of proven track record in industrial enzymes, recently went public and was met with rapturous investor response (the Rs 300-crore IPO was oversubscribed 33 times). ICICI Venture's other biotech investment, Avestha, however, may take longer to pay off. Its ambition is to be a global player in the area of plant biotechnology and, therefore, it has invested heavily into research-some Rs 45 crore at last count. But in the private equity business, high risk, when it pays off, usually fetches high returns.

Be it investments in media, textiles, retail, biotech, auto components or real estate, Ramnath and her team have boldly been the first to tread on sectors few dared venture into, only to emerge victorious. "It is our ability to spot emerging sectors with higher returns," says Bala Deshpande, Director, Invesments. Deshpande knows first hand. Straight haired and with a fondness for western-style dress-suits, Deshpande spent 10 years as a brand manager with companies like Best Foods and Cadbury before being hand-picked by Ramnath. Today, she heads a team responsible for 20 companies, sits on the board of nine investee companies and vets at least five serious proposals every month. And if the country's largest private equity company is willing to take a chance on new people and the blast of fresh air they bring, it is equally adventurous about trying out new financial instruments to structure innovative deals. Kishore Gotety, Director, Investments looks even younger than his 33 years but with 12 years of financial expertise under his belt, few doubt his ability. "Mezzanine financing has proved to be a great hit as it lets us reduce the significant risks associated with direct equity while giving us an option of cashing in on the upside," he says, referring to the mix of equity and subordinated debt ICICI Venture has used effectively on two deals. Fellow Director, Investments, Shankar Narayan, with direct charge of buyouts, real estate and restructuring is equally excited about the Tata Infomedia deal the company struck in 2003. "It was the closest to a perfect buyout; a good business, zero debt and lots of spare cash and valuable real estate," he gushes.

But ICICI Venture's success doesn't just stem from the team; it has a lot to do with the way the company is structured. Chief Risk Officer K. Ravindra, is part of the core investment team and lists the risks associated with every deal and also the procedures for managing them. And like its parent-ICICI Bank-ICICI Venture ensures that robust and articulated risk management systems back the intuition of employees.

Prakash Karnik, Advisor, Barings India, who was one of the creators of TDICI when he was with Unit Trust of India-he still has fond memories of the fund-says, "The level of innovative dealmaking has been exemplary and they have very effectively capitalised on an established brand (ICICI) to deliver strong value add."

Media Betting on the Brand

TV Today's G. Krishnan: A finger on the market pulse There's no dearth of private investor interest in media. But what swung it for TV Today Network was clearly the quality of its promoters. With years of proven experience in professional journalism including managing the country's leading news magazine, they were taken seriously right from the start. Media as a sector held enormous promise and after studying the Aaj Tak brand and the programming they had done, it emerged as the best fit. It not only had a finger on the audience pulse, but also had segmented the market very well with its 24-hour Hindi news channel. Besides, it met the "growth story" parameter. Exit was not considered an issue either, since TV Today seemed like an ideal IPO candidate-an assessment that proved to be right. "They were of great help guiding us through the pre- and actual IPO process, with Renuka herself devoting a lot of her time and expertise," says G Krishnan, CEO, TV Today Network.

Proactive To the Core

ICICI Venture, expectedly, is very careful about where it puts its money. Cautions Renuka, "Investing in a bad opportunity is certainly worse than letting go of a good opportunity." ICICI Venture only invests in one or two of every 20 proposals it receives. "We invest in stories," says Ramnath cryptically when asked what is it that the fund looks for. As a rule, ICICI Venture looks for untapped opportunities, unique products, not to mention passionate promoters with larger-than-life vision and aspiring to be the best. Then there are de rigueur checks like sound financials, promoter reference checks, technical expertise, market reputation, banking relationships, quality of directors. "We talk to everyone-promoters, CEO, customers, management team, competitors, you name it," says Ramnath.

Equally thorough and deliberate is the company's quest for fresh profitable opportunities. In-house teams constantly track emerging sectors. That could explain ICICI Venture's exposure to retail, biotech, and media. Poring through balance sheets, sector reports, identifying opportunities, risks, interacting with the marketplace, ICICI Venture's execs are always looking to provide the best returns to its investors. At any point there are at least 10 proposals the fund is looking at. Often, the opportunities come in the most serendipitous of ways. Welspun initially approached ICICI Venture for an international acquisition that didn't work out. "But while working with them, we realised that they had the right ingredients and that culminated in our investment," says Deshpande.

While Ramnath is said to be brutal with non-performance and non-performers, most team members-they routinely clock in 12-hour work days-say the culture emphasises support and independence. For Ramnath, there is no magic formula: just hours and hours of hard work and perseverance. The trick, according to her, is to be 24 hours on the job and not get stressed. "I just wish I could spend more time with my children," she laments.

Latching on to every project with the same perseverance she put into 20 years of learning Carnatic music, Ramnath's faith in herself and the team is legendary. Recalls Gotety, "When we were raising funds for the India Advantage Fund, we had to spend months educating local banks and financial institutions and it took us a year to raise the first Rs 600-odd crore but we eventually got there."

"We are not passive investors," says Ramnath, summing up what makes ICICI Venture click. "We are part owners of the business and our level of engagement in the investee companies is very high." What that means is that she or her fund managers don't hesitate to step in when they sense that the company's investment is at risk. This hasn't affected their relationship with their promoters. "It is more of a mindset issue and we're proactive investors has only served to impress them even more," adds, Sumit Chandwani, Director, Investments.

Last year was excellent for ICICI Venture. It launched four new domestic funds, including the flagship India Advantage Fund with a corpus of more than Rs 750 crore. "At the end of last year, when we sat down to make a list of reasons to celebrate, we ended up with 50," laughs Ramnath. This, in turn, ended up with an all-night party at one of Mumbai's hottest nightclubs. Knowing Ramnath, there is sure to be more partying at the end of this year.