Mumbai: India Inc's investment in overseas ventures fell by nearly 39.3 per cent to USD 2.65 billion in September this year, according to the RBI data released on Tuesday.
Domestic companies had committed USD 4.37 billion as outward foreign direct investment in the year-ago period, September 2016. In August 2017, India Inc had invested USD 1.34 billion in their overseas ventures that were either fully owned subsidiaries or joint ventures of the Indian parent companies.
The USD 2.65 billion worth of investment during September was in the form of equity stake, loan as well as issuance of guarantee by these Indian entities, the RBI said. Of this, the highest portion of about USD 1.22 billion came in as guarantee issuance; followed by USD 1.06 billion as loan and USD 374.95 million was part of the equity holding.
Major investors include Tata Steel which put USD 858.29 million in a wholly-owned subsidiary (WoS) in Singapore; TCS USD 356.29 million in WoS unit in the UK and Bharat Petroresources committed a collective USD 164.60 million in its two fully owned units in the Netherlands and Singapore.
Chemicals, shipping and metal company Sanmar Group International invested USD 280 million in a WoS in Switzerland.
Government-ownened Gail India invested a combined USD 101.50 million in the US-based wholly owned company and Myanmar-based joint venture company while Wipro put USD 79.52 million in UK-based wholly owned firm.
