Warburg and Bharti Enterprises to acquire 49 per cent of Haier India

NOIDA: Warburg Pincus and Bharti Enterprises are buying their way into India’s booming white-goods market, snapping up a combined 49 per cent stake in Haier India and loosening China’s grip on one of the country’s fastest-growing appliance brands.

The stake will be acquired from China’s Haier Group, which will retain 49 per cent ownership, while employees will hold the remaining 2 per cent. The move hands the US private equity firm and the Indian conglomerate a strategic foothold in a sector dominated by South Korea’s Samsung and LG, and increasingly central to India’s consumer growth story.

The companies declined to disclose the deal value, but the Economic Times, citing industry executives, pegged Haier India’s valuation at around Rs 150 billion ($1.67 billion). Warburg and Bharti did not comment on the figure.

The transaction comes against a delicate geopolitical backdrop. While New Delhi and Beijing have shown tentative signs of thawing relations, Chinese investments in India remain under intense regulatory scrutiny, making local partnerships not just prudent but necessary.

Haier India manufactures air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, washing machines and kitchen appliances from two plants in Pune and Greater Noida, serving a market that is heating up fast as incomes rise and urban demand surges.

For Warburg and Bharti, the bet is clear: fewer cables and calls, more compressors and coolers. And in a market where consumption is king, this is a power play with the plug firmly pulled out of geopolitics and pushed straight into growth.