What KADAK Looks for When Investing in an Energy Company

The market context for platform deals

Buying de-risked scale has become the dominant route to growth in Indian renewables. Reporting in March 2026 put renewables at roughly 80% of power-sector M&A value, against USD 3.2 billion in H1 2024 and USD 2.8 billion in H2 2024. The visible 2026 transactions frame the range: Aditya Birla Renewables agreed to acquire Shell's Sprng Energy group at INR 17,200 crore (about USD 1.8 billion) in July 2026, and Macquarie Asset Management entered advanced talks for a controlling stake in Fourth Partner Energy at about USD 2 billion in August 2026, with IFC among the exiting shareholders. Sellers should expect to be measured against those files.

Revenue quality and EBITDA

We separate contracted operating revenue from development fees, EPC margin, one-off asset sales and related-party income. Durable EBITDA is what supports leverage and valuation; everything else is analysed but not capitalised at the same multiple. Receivable ageing by counterparty is examined line by line, because in Indian power the difference between recognised and collected revenue is a real number.

Revenue quality and contracted backlog dominate the first screen.

Backlog and pipeline

Backlog means executed contracts with commissioning obligations. Pipeline means rights. We ask for both to be classified by stage — secured, contracted, permitted, financed — and we discount aggressively where a Letter of Award has not converted to a PPA, a distinction 2026 has made expensive to ignore.

Management and governance

Team depth beyond the founder, board composition, audit and related-party controls, statutory compliance history, ESG and health-and-safety record, and the quality of internal reporting. For a cross-border investor, governance is the mechanism through which every other assumption is monitored after closing.

Customers and differentiation

Concentration by counterparty, contract tenor profile, renewal history in C&I portfolios, and whether the company's advantage is genuinely structural — land bank, grid positions, service density, in-house EPC — or simply a function of a favourable procurement window.

Structure, capital and alignment

Existing shareholder agreements, minority protections, exit rights already granted, debt covenants and change-of-control provisions, holding structure and tax treatment, and the use of proceeds. We spend as much time on what the incoming capital funds as on what the company is worth.

The growth plan we can underwrite

A plan grounded in rights the company already holds, capital it can realistically raise and a delivery record that supports the pace. Ambition unsupported by grid positions and offtake is a slide, not a plan.