GIC, ICICI Bank to join TPG as co-Investors in $1-billion green-energy NBFC

GIC manages Singapore’s foreign reserves and is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds with assets estimated at more than $700 billion.

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Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and ICICI Bank are set to come on board as co-investors with private equity firm TPG to launch a dedicated green energy financing platform in India, people familiar with the matter told Moneycontrol.

The platform will be structured as a non-banking finance company (NBFC), with an equity base of close to $1 billion and is awaiting approval from the Reserve Bank of India, the sources said.

“The approval for the NBFC is currently pending with the Reserve Bank and the regulator is expected to issue the license soon,” one of the persons cited above said.

The NBFC will focus on wholesale lending to renewable energy projects and will offer plain vanilla loans rather than structured or hybrid products.

Industry watchers said the lending book at inception is expected to be around $4.5–5 billion (nearly Rs 40,000 crore, making it one of the largest dedicated renewable financing vehicles in the country.

The move comes at a time when project finance has slowed in India. Several large banks have reduced their exposure to long-term project loans following defaults in the power sector and amid uncertainty in the broader credit environment.

India has pledged to install 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, a target that industry experts estimate will require $20–25 billion in new investment each year. “A specialised NBFC of this size could help ease some of the financing bottlenecks,” an observer tracking the sector said.

Emails sent to TPG, GIC and ICICI Bank seeking comment remained unanswered at the time of publication.

GIC, which manages Singapore’s foreign reserves, is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds with assets estimated at more than $700 billion. It has been a long-term investor in India across infrastructure, financial services and real estate, including stakes in DLF’s rental arm DCCDL, Bharti Airtel’s tower business and Greenko Energy.

TPG, the US private equity firm, has been active in India for more than two decades. Through its Rise platform, it has stepped up exposure to climate and clean-energy ventures. Its investments include a $1-billion infusion in Tata Motors’ electric vehicle subsidiary in 2021 and funding commitments to Greenko Energy Holdings.

ICICI Bank’s role as a co-investor is expected to give the NBFC a strong domestic anchor, complementing global capital from GIC and TPG. The platform will aim to fill a gap left by traditional lenders while catering to the fast-growing renewable sector, industry watchers said.

If approved, the platform will be among the first large-scale, privately backed green financing NBFCs in India.

Industry experts say its launch will highlight growing investor confidence in clean-energy financing, even as the domestic banking system remains cautious on long-term project lending. The NBFC could complement the role of state-backed financiers such as the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and REC Ltd, which have, so far, shouldered much of the responsibility for renewable lending but cannot alone meet the scale of financing required for India’s 2030 targets, they said.