State Bank of India and the State General Reserve Fund (SGRF) of Oman on Wednesday signed an agreement to set up a joint investment fund with an initial corpus of $100 million for picking up equity in Indian projects.
The agreement was inked by SBI Chairman O. P. Bhatt and SGRF Chief Executive Warith Al-Kharusi in the presence of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Oman's Minister of National Economy Ahmed Macki.
According to an official statement here, the India Oman Joint Investment Fund shall aim at making equity investments in various sectors of the Indian economy.
Starting with the initial corpus to be contributed equally by SGRF and SBI, the fund will explore opportunities in all sectors without any specific preference.
For the present, the fund would limit itself to Indian investment opportunities. “There is no specific sector focus and the fund will look for opportunities in all sectors of India permitted by regulations from time to time,” the statement said.
The fund can be expanded to have a corpus of up to $1.5 billion through future schemes, depending upon the experience of the initial fund. The purpose of the collaboration is to attract capital into India from that region.
The management company shall be owned 50:50 by State Bank of India and SGRF, with equal profit sharing by both sides.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Mukherjee said the signing of the agreement for the fund was part of the overall cooperation in various areas between India and Oman.
