Forbes India 30 Under 30 2025: Anant Mohta and the art of making deals

Mohta became Bain Capital's youngest VP at 27 and in 2022, the company closed a near-$500 million deal to pick up a substantial stake in asset and wealth management services firm 360 One (formerly IIF Wealth)—a company Mohta was tracking since his early days at Bain

By Salil Panchal Forbes India Staff

Published: Feb 19, 2025 03:12:32 PM IST

Updated: Feb 19, 2025 03:29:06 PM IST

Full Bio

Anant Mohta, VP, Bain Capital Private Equity Image: Amit Verma; Directed By: Kapil Kashyap

Anant Mohta is young to the corporate world, but has seen and learnt that life can be both wretched and glorious. At 12, he saw most of his family wealth lost to the 2008 financial crisis. It got him to save pocket money and start investing in the stock markets.

At Bain Capital Private Equity, where he became the youngest vice president at 27, he had the opportunity of relocating to their Hong Kong office, but then China’s economy started to weaken, and he stayed back. Mohta carried the wish to graduate from a US business school, but then came a promotion to VP at Bain, which has helped him build his CV.

Then he got married which, indirectly, stalled a decision to move towards doing an MBA. “I thought I was a planner, but things did not necessarily go the way I planned them. I’ve learnt now the need to try to excel wherever you are and not get impatient,” Mohta tells Forbes India.

Mohta, the youngest of three siblings, was always academically strong and keen to dabble in the world of finance, investing and the economy. He carried these strengths while studying at New Delhi’s Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) and later becoming a chartered financial analyst (CFA) between 2015 and 2019.

His father runs a bed and breakfast hotels business around tech parks in Bengaluru, where the family grew up while his mother has a workshop to manufacture and sell bed linen. Mohta was among the two candidates who got college placements, working at management consultant firm Kearney, as a business analyst, for a year.

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But his real skills were honed at private equity firm Bain Capital—where he joined in January 2020—despite teamwork dynamics changing rapidly each time the pandemic surged till end-2021. Luckily for the private equity ecosystem there was enough to work for.

In 2022, Bain Capital closed a near-$500 million deal to pick up a substantial stake in asset and wealth management services firm 360 One (formerly IIF Wealth). “I had proactively tracked the business even when new at Bain. The business was going through a transition. I thought it was opportune to go get something done,” Mohta recounts of a time in October 2021. His bosses agreed. The 360 One stock has risen to ₹1,183 levels at the BSE on January 17 from a low of ₹407 in April 2023.

Mohta had “peeled the onions” for another important deal of chemical firm Novopor (formerly called Porus labs), where the mandate was to buy out the business and run it. The deal closed in June 2023. He was part of the team which executed the deal to exit lender Axis Bank after six years in late 2023. He speaks now about maintaining “balanced advocacy”—a judgement which is neither completely biased nor bullish.

One of his mentors, Havells India Chairman and MD Anil Rai Gupta, says, “Anant is not just a talented and hardworking boy, he is also a complete personality, carrying the family with him, though he is the youngest.” Mohta is a close friend of Gupta’s son Abhinav and knows him from his SRCC days.

There is more for Mohta to achieve. “I will continue to be in the world of finance, which I love, but at some point, I wish to explore something more entrepreneurial.”

Anant Mohta (28)

VP, Bain Capital Private Equity

Finance