 "NRI investors drag ICICI to Mauritius court over losses in property fund")
Mumbai - A group of 69 non-resident Indian investors said on Tuesday they had sued ICICI Venture at the Supreme Court in Mauritius seeking to obtain $103 million in damages over alleged losses on their investments in a property fund run by the private equity firm.
The investors said they had suffered “huge losses” on their investments in the Dynamic India Fund III run by ICICI Venture, saying only one of its 13 projects in India had been completed as of March, nine years after the fund was incorporated in Mauritius. The investors said the fund had “invested in real estate projects that flopped miserably, instead of world class ones as the marketing teams promised”.
The group, which filed its lawsuit in July, accused the fund of engaging in “total neglect of due diligence,” of under-estimating cost and completion time of projects, and of also engaging in “overt manipulation of the finances” to escalate costs.
The group also sued ICICI Bank, the Dynamic India III fund trustee Western India Trustee and Executor Co, and the administrator of the fund, International Financial Services.
ICICI Venture denied the allegations, noting it had extended the lifespan of the Dynamic India Fund III by three years, and had offered investors a cash exit option that was “in line with global best practices”. “The allegations levelled by a set of investors, constituting only 12% of the investors in the concerned funds, are totally baseless, not supported by facts and are malicious,” it said.
Reuters