IDFC Private Equity, the private equity investment arm of infrastructure financing firm Infrastructure Development Finance Co. Ltd (IDFC), is raising a $600 million (Rs2,364 crore) fund, its third since it set up operations as the country’s first pure play infrastructure PE investor in 2002. The proposed fund has an upper limit of $700 million on the final corpus and is expected to close fund-raising in March 2008, said a person familiar with the development who did not wish to be named. The firm’s president & CEO Luis Miranda declined to comment. The third fund from IDFC PE comes at a time when pure play infrastructure funds (ones that do not invest in real estate), backed both by domestic and overseas investors, have become popular in the country. In October, UK’s 3i Group Plc. raised $500 million in the first close of its proposed $1 billion 3i India Infrastructure Fund. The fund has already invested $328 million across two deals—Soma Enterprise Ltd and Adani Power Pvt. Ltd. Separately, IDFC PE’s parent, the state-owned IDFC is itself in the process of closing first-round commitments for a mega $5 billion mega infrastructure fund, which includes debt and equity. Co-investors in this fund include Blackstone Group, Citigroup Inc. and the ministry of finance-backed India Infrastructure Finance Co. (IIFC).   more »