Sanaka Group brings a differentiated investment and value creation strategy to the mid-market private equity landscape. Sanaka Group’s investment philosophy is derived from extensive experience of its founder, Shankar Narayanan, and is based on the belief that successful private equity investment requires a strong team having relevant skill sets & experience and the mindset to work alongside founders and management teams to create value.

Sanaka Group believes that India, as a developing economy and promising ecosystem for entrepreneurship, offers high growth potential across several business segments and industry verticals. Sanaka Group seeks to partner with high quality entrepreneurs and management teams of mid-sized companies that seek to benefit from new market opportunities within India or other economies. Sanaka Group will harness its vast network of relationships to provide wide ranging access to investee companies and act as a catalyst in transforming the company and setting it off on an accelerated growth trajectory.

Sanaka Group seeks to drive long-term value creation for its investee companies through a well-defined operational value add approach, improved market access, enhanced strategic focus and emphasis on corporate governance.

Shankar Narayanan

Founder

Mr Shankar Narayanan was formerly the Managing Director and Co-Head of the Asia Growth Capital team of Carlyle, a global PE fund, responsible for advising on growth capital investments in Asia. Shankar Narayanan has been in private equity since 1993 with the unique distinction of having run some of the investee companies as a CEO. He has on-the-ground work experience in India which allows him to have a very practical perspective of growth prospects and challenges across industries.

Since joining Carlyle in 2004, Shankar Narayanan has advised on investments such as Claris Lifesciences, Elitecore Technologies, Repco Home Finance, Tirumala Milk Products, Visen Industries, Value & Budget Housing Corporation (VBHC), Edelweiss Financial Services, South Indian Bank, Cyient, and Allsec Technologies. Shankar Narayanan has also advised on successful exits from Tirumala, Elitecore, Edelweiss, Repco and Claris. He was also actively involved in Managing the fund’s investments and exits in Newgen Knowledge Works, Learning Mate Solutions, QuEST and Sharekhan.

Shankar Narayanan started his PE career as MD & CEO of Hathway Investments. While at Hathway, Shankar Narayanan was involved in a number of investments including Johnson Tiles, Exide Industries, Hathway Cable, Asianet Satellite Communications and served on the boards of all these companies. After Hathway, Shankar Narayanan was associated with The Chatterjee Group (TCG) and Deutsche Bank Capital Partners in Hong Kong, and ICICI Ventures before joining Carlyle.

Shankar Narayanan is academically qualified with a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) from XLRI Jamshedpur, where he topped his graduating class in the area of finance and accounting. He also holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

The Sanaka Group has founded an Investment Advisor entity to provide non-binding advise on investment opportunities in the Alternate Investments space.

To know more visit: www.sanakacapital.in