About

Rajeev Kumar joined HDFC Property Ventures, a leading Indian the venture capital and private equity company, as senior vice president legal in 2008. He is responsible for managing the complexities of negotiations including the legal documentation during the company’s international fund raising, demonstrating his insight over market practices and understanding of legal risks and jurisdictional issues. He manages and handles the entire gambit of legal aspects of real estate investment transactions, over two dozen, understanding the micro issues of the industry and legalities involved in various jurisdictions of the country for regulations. Kumar has been involved in transactions on investments worth over US$500m as well as the divestment of over US$350m in the last three years. In terms of litigation, he has been involved in the winding up of a portfolio company in the High Court and the initiation of IBC proceedings against another portfolio company in NCLT in the last three years. Kumar identifies that his long tenure and stability at the company has helped him see the full life cycle of a typical fund, which ranges from 8 to 12 years, and has given him in-depth knowledge of the practical issues being faced by the investors, regulators and portfolio companies. It also gives him insight to understand the range of issues from a litigators’ perspective. Kumar runs the legal department with a philosophy of mutual freedom of expression to allow critique and evaluation to neutralise any potential issues within the organisation and uses a robust management information system to save valuable time and ensure deliverables are achieved on time in order to make the legal team as commercially enabling as possible. Kumar identifies that venture capital and private equity is, ‘in [its] budding phase in the country and [has] lots to evolve. My experience and expertise [accumulated] over a decade in this industry gives me an edge over others to opine and give optimum solutions to my organisation’.