MUMBAI : Bain Capital is looking to deploy around $1 billion in Indian companies over the next three years, underscoring the private equity firm’s bullish stance on this market despite the current economic downturn.

The US-based PE investor, which raised its fourth Asia-focused fund, the biggest so far, at $4.65 billion, has been a major investor in the country.

“If you look at over the last seven years, we have invested over $2.5 billion and are one of the biggest investors in the country. There is no reason why we cannot keep investing in India at the same pace,” said Amit Chandra, managing director and chairman of Bain’s India office, on the sidelines of Sankalp Global Summit held in Mumbai.

Chandra said Bain’s focus on India will be on writing a few large cheques.

“Our investments in Axis Bank, Genpact and Hero MotoCorp were over $500 million. So, single deals will continue to be the strategy going forward, as we have always focused on big deals. Single deals for us have been in the $500 million to $1 billion range,” he added.

While Bain does not have hard geographic allocations for deploying capital, Chandra said India features amongst the top three markets for the PE firm.

“India is one of the most important markets for us among the key markets that we invest in- Japan, China, India, Australia and South Korea. Historically, India has been 20-25% of any fund. This is just the Asia fund, we also invest into India from our global fund,” he added.