The recent slide in stock prices has come as a boon for private equity investors, many of who had bought stakes in listed companies via private placements at frothy valuations. Some of these entities are now buying the shares of these companies through the secondary market at lower prices, thus lowering their original cost of acquisition. “When private equity firms see long-term potential in the companies they have invested in, they resort to dollar-cost-averaging when the market corrects. This is what has happened of late,” said Nexus India Capital CEO Sandeep Singhal. Among notable instances of such secondary market purchases, Apax Partners hiked its stake in Apollo Hospitals to 14.52% as on June 2008, from 12.01% in December 2007. In another case, Standard Chartered Private Equity, which had 5.47% stake in M&M Financial in March 2008, raised its holding in the company to 7.93% by June 2008.   more »