India's growing logistics business has proved to be very attractive for the private equity (PE) firms. And that is the reason why the amount of investment by these firms in the vertical has gone up considerably.

The segment has seen a definite rise in the number of M&As in the last four years. This has gained pace since the government, in order to improve the infrastructure, is pushing the transportation sector. Many more deals are expected to happen.

The different verticals in this segment which have attracted the eyeballs are ports, warehouses, freight container stations, cold chains, captive spin-offs and auto and retail logistics. Free Trade Warehousing Zones, too, have gained quite a prominence.

Analysts believe that the logistics sector is going to be one of the top five PE investment attracting sectors.

There are estimates that deals worth $20-25 million will happen in near future. And the trend is that the PE firms are targeting the small sized firms so as to be able to keep the size of investment ticket small.

While the costs involved, in the segment, are one of the highest in the world, it is the number of options which it making it attractive.