According to media reports, KKR & Co plans to move its managing director from India to Singapore to manage the firm's Southeast Asia private equity division.

Prashant Kumar, who has been with KKR in Mumbai since 2018, will relocate to Singapore in July and begin his new post. Kumar will collaborate alongside Ashish Shastry, a partner who oversees Southeast Asia and co-manages the firm's Asia Pacific Private Equity business.

Kumar, a Wharton School and Indian Institute of Technology alumnus, has invested in Indian enterprises such as deodorant maker Vini Cosmetics and medicine maker JB Chemicals.

Kumar's move comes after KKR has recently strengthened its Indian leadership. In 2020, it hired Gaurav Trehan from TPG Inc to oversee its Indian operations.

KKR also signed Trehan's former colleague Akshay Tanna from TPG as a partner in its Indian private equity division last month.

The move also coincides with KKR's expansion into India and Southeast Asia. In 2021, it raised USD 15 billion for its fourth Asia-Pacific focused private equity fund, one of the largest in the area for the asset class.

Since 2005, KKR has been investing in Southeast Asia, and its Singapore office launched in 2012. Its regional assets include private equity, real estate, lending, and infrastructure.

Frontier Tower Associations, a KKR-backed telecom tower platform, spent USD 220 million in March for more than 100 communication towers in the Philippines from broadband firm PLDT.

Last week that hospital group Aster DM Healthcare and its advisers had approached KKR regarding selling a stake.