Trilegal has advised global private equity firm Carlyle on its acquisition of majority stakes in Highway Industries (HIL) and Roop Automotives for $400 million, marking its entry into India's auto components sector through a new manufacturing platform.
HIL and Roop, along with their promoters, were represented by Touchstone Partners and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, respectively.
The transaction involves the establishment of a single platform for Carlyle by bringing together two distinct promoter groups and companies. Carlye will own 65-70 percent stake in the platform, while the promoters will own the remaining shares.
This deal comes amid a robust start to private equity and venture capital investments in India, with January 2025 recording $6.3 billion in investments, marking a 37 percent increase from December 2024's $4.5 billion, an EY report found. While this represents a 9 percent year-on-year decline from January 2024's $6.9 billion, India's favourable macroeconomic environment, strong fiscal health, and stable government policies continue to drive PE/VC activity, with deal momentum expected to accelerate as volatility in midcap and small-cap indices subsides.
The Trilegal transaction team was led by partner Sneha Vardhan, along with counsel Shubhaang Sinha and Vyshnav Karthik, senior associates Archit Gupta and Vishesh Mehrotra, and associates Drishti Rajain, Sakshi Rajawat, Jatin Soni, Tanay Saluja and Shreya Khandelwal.
Also assisting on the deal were labour and employment partners Atul Gupta and Kanishka Maggon, real estate partner Rahul Arora, IP partner Kirti Balasubramanian, TMT partner Jyotsana Jayaram, environmental partner Rajat Jariwal, litigation partner Anusha Ramesh, and competition partner Gauri Chhabra, along with their respective teams.
The Touchstone team included managing partner Karam Daulet-Singh, partner Gaurav Desai, and associates Aastha Saily, Anjani Tewary and Juhi Hirani.
The CAM deal team was led by partners Anchal Dhir, Aditi Manchanda and Jay Parikh, and included senior associate Varun Kannan and associate Swini Khara.
Partners Arun Prabhu (technology), Avaantika Kakkar and Dhruv Rajain (competition), Swati Sharma (IP) and Bishen Jeswant (employment) assisted on the deal.
