In early 2017, Mathew Cyriac was in New York to say goodbye to his colleagues at Blackstone. He had spent eleven years at the Mumbai office and it was time to do something on his own. As he reached the private equity giant’s headquarters in Manhattan’s Park Avenue, he was not quite prepared for what was to follow.

A couple of senior officials at Blackstone asked Cyriac, till recently the co-head of the private equity fund’s Indian operations, if he would be keen on buying over two of its assets in India. Understandably, he was taken aback and asked for time to mull over it. A few days later, he was back in India to take stock of his new venture, Florintree Advisors.