While the foreign institutional investors might be miffed with the Indian equity market and be steadily decreasing their exposure, private equity players might not, as returns earned by deals remain in the positive zone. Incidentally, private equity investors took a record $19.5 billion exposure in India, significantly higher than the $12.8 billion in China. In this segment, the pre-IPO marker seems to have been the stellar area where investments made in 2007, and marked to market till end of May, have seen the deals generate a 128.30% return, says a study conducted by New Delhi based SMC Investment Solutions & Services. Earlier known as the venture capital, pre-IPO route is where private equity funds invest in the company way before the IPO and then earn the gains by exiting after listing or in the secondary market at an opportune time.   more »