New Delhi, June 26 -- Actis, which acts as the infrastructure-focused private equity arm of American alternative investor General Atlantic since its acquisition in 2024, has harvested more capital from a fintech bet that it made over eight years ago with poor returns on its investment.
The London-headquartered PE firm, which is now focused on making growth investments in the sustainable infrastructure space, has liquidated close to two-thirds of its shareholding in Noida-based digital payments company Pine Labs Ltd over the past week.
Actis sold 23.9 million shares of Mumbai-listed Pine Labs at a price of Rs 155.17 apiece via an open market transaction on Wednesday, stock-exchange data shows. It pocketed Rs 371 crore ($39.3 million) in the process. This followed its sale of 9.8 million shares at Rs 154.25 apiece on June 19 for Rs 151.6 crore, the data shows.
The PE firm's shareholding in Pine Labs now stands at 1.54%, down from 4.36% at the end of March. The share sales comes despite the fintech company's stock plunging by more than 25% from its IPO price.
Pine Labs, which also counts Peak XV Partners, Alpha Wave Global, Temasek and Sofina among its backers, went public in November last year and sold shares at Rs 221 apiece in the IPO. It listed at a valuation of around Rs 25,737 crore ($2.9 billion then), a discount of 40% from its peak valuation of $5 billion. At the time, Actis divested less than 1% of Pine Labs's shares and harvested Rs 194.7 crore.
Based on first-in, first-out principal, the partial exits in June generated an internal rate of return of 10.4% in rupee terms and a multiple on invested capital of 2.2x for Actis, VCCircle estimates show. This is below the 20-30% benchmark that private equity and venture capital investors chase in rupee terms.
The PE firm's IRR in dollar terms-which is more relevant for it as it raises capital from limited partners overseas-would be even lower since the rupee has lost nearly a third of its value against the greenback since early 2018 when it first invested in Pine Labs.
Actis first invested in Pine Labs in 2018. It doubled down on its investment in 2019. Overall, it invested about Rs 438 crore in the company, according to VCCircle estimates based on the company's disclosures.
The PE firm has harvested a total of Rs 717.3 crore from Pine Labs so far, recording an overall realised IRR of 11.5-12%, VCCircle estimates show. The overall IRR so far is higher than the latest tranche because of its partial exit at a higher price during the IPO. The PE firm's remaining stake is worth around Rs 300 crore.
Actis is the third investor to sell stake in Pine Labs in recent months. A few weeks back, Altimeter Capital exited Pine Labs, also falling short of the benchmark. Private equity firm Madison India Capital, which has been on the road to raise a new fund for the past couple of years, sold almost its entire 2.2% stake in the company last month with its returns falling a tad short of the benchmark.
Pine Labs, which commands a market value of Rs 18, 379 crore at present, filed its preliminary prospectus with the capital markets regulator in June 2025, after it shifted its domicile back to India from Singapore in preparation for a domestic listing. It offered Rs 2,080 crore in primary issue versus Rs 2,600 crore planned previously. The IPO also included an offer for sale of 82.3 million shares by more than 20 institutional investors as well as over 100 individual shareholders. This was about 45% lower than what was disclosed in its draft prospectus. The Rs 3,900-crore IPO was oversubscribed on the final day of the offer.
The digital payments company operates in India and a number of international markets, including Malaysia, the Philippines, the UAE, Singapore, Australia, the US, and Africa. It recently agreed to acquire Tiger Global-backed Shopflo Technologies, a direct-to-consumer checkout platform, in an all-cash deal valued at Rs 88 crore.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.