Renewable energy company ACME Solar Holdings Ltd aims to raise Rs 3,000 crore ($360 million) by floating an initial public offering (IPO), as it looks to pare its debt and ramp up its 1.3GW portfolio.
The Gurgaon-based company intends to raise Rs 2,000 crore by issuing fresh shares while its founder entity, ACME Cleantech Solutions, will sell shares to mop up Rs 1,000 crore, according to its draft red herring prospectus.
This is not the first time that ACME, which was founded in 2015, is trying to go public. It first attempted to do so in 2017 and then in 2018 and 2021. But those plans went nowhere.
The IPO comes even as ACME has been divesting some of its assets in recent times to pare debt. In March this year, ACME offloaded 369MW of solar capacity to private equity firm Actis-backed Blupine Energy. These assets were spread across Uttarakhand, Punjab and Karnataka.
ACME Solar posted a profit of Rs 698 crore in 2023-24. Its debt was around Rs 8,217 crore as March-end.
The ACME Group has been around for two decades. Founded in 2003 as ACME Tele Power Ltd by Manoj Kumar Upadhyay, the group began by providing equipment for telecom infrastructure. In December 2011, the company started its first solar power project.
At present, it has an operational solar capacity of 1.3GW, according to its website. In fact, till date, it has commissioned 3.67GWp of solar power projects of which a part has been sold. The company has an under-construction portfolio of about 4GW.
The company has hired Nuvama, ICICI Securities, JM Financial, Kotak Investment Banking and Motilal Oswal Investment Banking as the book-running managers for its IPO.
