Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), some of the biggest foreign financial investors who have extensively operated in India over the past decade, have further strengthened their presence in the world’s second fastest-growing economy.  And this time, it is the Government of Singapore Investment Corp or GIC which has opened its ninth global office and its first in India in Mumbai, supplementing the presence of another sovereign fund of Singapore, namely Temasek, that already has offices in Mumbai and Chennai.

GIC’s India office will be headed by Kishore Gotety whose team features more than 10 investment and asset management professionals.

According to Tony Tan, GIC’s deputy chairman and executive director, “GIC has been among theearliest institutional investors in the emerging Asian markets. In India, GIC has been investing across the public and private markets since the early 1990s. Setting up an India office demonstrates GIC’s commitment to secure a larger role in the Indian growth story."

GIC has a global portfolio with offices in New York, San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai, London, Seoul and Tokyo, besides Singapore.It has investments in more than a dozen Indian companies such as ICICI Bank, Infosys, Tata Motors DVR, Indiabulls Real Estate, Anant Raj Inds, United Phosphorous, Subex, VA Tech Wabag, Prestige Estate Projects and ICSA.

GIC’s India office head will be an old ICICI Group hand. ICICI Venture's real estate investment head Kishore Gotety had quit the fund to join RREEF (Deutsche Bank’s property fund management company) as its country head in India around three and a half years ago. After around two years, he became the head of portfolio management at RREEF Global Opportunistic Investments for Asia Pacific.

Last August, he quit the firm to join GIC Real Estate Pte and in effect, became the country head for India.

GIC’s sister investment firm Temasek has a separate management and set up its India office way back in 2004.Two years ago, the company opened an office in Chennai to expand its India operations.