JSA advises Hero Future Energies on USD 450 million from KKR

JSA advised Hero Future Energies Global (HFE Global) and Hero Future Energies Private Limited (HFE India) in securing a private equity investment worth INR 36 billion (USD 450 million) from global firm KKR.

Partners Manvinder Singh and Anant Mishra led the JSA transaction team, with support from senior associate Parnik Saxena and associate Pragya Pandey. The design and competition consulting teams also advised on the transaction.

“(HFE Global) operates in Asia and Europe and has a fairly complex holding structure with two tiers (India and the UK). While the transaction would normally be very complex, the transaction involved a very experienced group of investors, the special purpose vehicle and its transaction advisors from two jurisdictions,” Singh said.

He added: “HFE Global and KKR management were particularly focused on closing the transaction on agreed terms and their guidance was linear and not misleading. Investors and the target company wanted to work cohesively and in this regard, KKR encouraged the outgoing promoters to make further investments to give all parties “skin in the game”.

“This, combined with the synergy between advisors, ensured that at no point did ‘deal fatigue’ occur, even though the deal was valid for over a year and faced significant regulatory delays. The transaction required approval from the antitrust authority, the CCI (Competition Commission of India – the antitrust regulator). Until the transaction documents were frozen, the CCI remained vacant, which meant that there was no quorum among the CCI members to adopt the “merger” order. This led to a three-month delay in closing the transaction, which had been in the works for over a year.

New York-based KKR is a global investment firm with assets under management of over $500 billion, which includes significant investments in India’s renewable energy sector. HFE Group focuses on clean energy, operates internationally and includes investors such as IFC (World Bank) and Masdar.

HFE will use this investment to expand its solar, wind, battery storage and green hydrogen capabilities and expand into new markets in India. This investment leverages KKR’s expertise in India and renewable energy, supporting HFE’s role in helping companies decarbonize in the face of growing energy demand.

The current transaction also involved filing a merger notification with CCI and obtaining approvals from the Reserve Bank of India.