Baer Capital Partners, a Dubai-based fund management company, plans to raise $500 million to invest in real estate and infrastructure in India, the world's fastest growing major economy after China. The firm will begin investing in India in the second quarter of next year after tapping investors outside India in early 2008, said Alok Sama, president of Baer Capital, in an interview in Mumbai. BCP was launched in 2006 with a broad mandate to conduct investment management, corporate finance and wealth advisory business in the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East region. The initial focus of the firm is to build an alternative asset management platform centered on India, creating products targeted primarily at global institutional and high net worth individuals. Baer Capital has already invested about a third of a $200 million private equity fund in power transmission services and an art auction house. Mr Sama said the private equity fund would also invest in a developer, infrastructure services and a software testing company. Alongside Mr Sama, formerly a managing director at Morgan Stanley, are Michael Baer, former head of Private Banking and member of the executive board at Julius Baer Group, and Brij Raj Singh, founding chief executive and managing director of Julius Baer (Middle East) and a former managing director at Merrill Lynch. BCP joins JPMorgan Chase, 3i Group, Blackstone Group and Citigroup in planning to invest funds from overseas in Indian companies building roads, ports and electricity plants. BCP is headquartered in Dubai in the Dubai International Financial Centre and also has offices in London and Zurich.