Bharucha & Partners and Khaitan & Co have led on The Blackstone Group’s Rs 300 crore ($64m) investment in logistics company Gateway Rail Freight.

Khaitan & Co Mumbai partner Rabindra Jhunjhunwala and senior associate Ashwin Mathew led the team for Blackstone.

Bharucha co-founding partner Alka Bharucha and senior associate Dipankar Bandyopadhyay advised Gateway Rail Freight.

Bharucha has had a long-standing relationship with Gateway Rail Freight’s parent Gateway Distriparks, running back to the days when she was an equity partner at Amarchand Mangaldas.

She advised on the topco’s initial public offering in 2005, as well as subsequent acquisitions and investments by the company.

Bharucha said: “It was a fairly complex transaction which I thought was executed pretty efficiently and in a very short period of time.”

She added that all parties involved operated very constructively and in good faith, which helped to bring the transaction to a successful close.

New York-based private equity house Blackstone will take a stake of up to 49.9 per cent in Gateway Rail.

The proceeds of the investment would be used by the company to expand existing terminals and to buy new container trains and trailers.

Bharucha & Partners was started up in 2008 and the firm made its first new equity partner in August of this year.

Photo by JFeister