Vinode Ramgopal
Founder & Chairman, Vahanna LLC
Vinode Ramgopal
Founder & Chairman, Vahanna LLC
Vinode Ramgopal, Founder and Chairman of Vahanna LLC, our sponsor, has spent over 30 years in the financial services industry as an investment banker, entrepreneur and investor. At present, he is the Co-Chairman of Magellan Inc, a holding company that incubates and invests in cross-border financial services platforms with a particular emphasis on emerging and frontier market opportunities, and co-Managing Partner of Pi Capital International, a US/Asia-based investment banking advisory firm specializing in cross-border capital raising and M&A. Magellan’s current holdings include Marco Polo Securities, an SEC and FINRA-registered securities firm that is one of the leading US platforms for foreign securities firms around the world to access US institutional investors; and Tao Investments, a cross-border special situations investment fund.
Previously, Mr. Ramgopal was the founder and Chairman of Marco Polo Group (2000 – 2011), a global financial services platform focused on EM capital markets infrastructure and electronic trading in emerging and frontier markets. Between 1986 and 2000,
Mr. Ramgopal was a senior banker in Lehman Brothers’ international and emerging markets investment banking group, holding a number of leadership roles including responsibility for the firm’s Global Privatization advisory group, Emerging Markets Investment Banking and EM Cross Border M&A. During his tenure at Lehman, Mr. Ramgopal led or oversaw teams that executed over $30 billion of cross border M&A, equity capital raisings and listings on the US public markets, including some of the largest IPO offerings from the emerging markets at the time, such as the $625 million IPO of Huaneng Power, the $2.1 billion IPO privatization of PT TELKOM and the $1.1 billion IPO privatization of INDOSAT on the NYSE.
Other notable transactions of Mr. Ramgopal include the $250 million convertible debt offering of Larsen Tubro, the $300 million convertible debt offering of State Bank of India, the $500 million sale of Turkish government stake in TOFAS, the $1.9 billion strategic sale of Venezuelan national telephone company CANTV to GTE, the $1.1 billion IPO privatization of Venezuelan government residual holding in CANTIV on the NYSE and the $21 billion strategic sale of Brazilian Government stake in Telebras.
Mr. Ramgopal has served as an executive or senior advisor to a number of private equity groups regarding their cross-border and emerging markets investment strategies, including Aquiline Partners and Energy Impact Partners.
Mr. Ramgopal was educated at the London School of Economics and Merton College, Oxford.
