Bessemer Venture Partners, a Mumbai-based private equity firm, is investing Rs 80 crore into Spanco Power Distribution Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Spanco Ltd, a publicly listed technology infrastructure provider. In a communiqué to the exchanges, the company said that it had “entered into a share subscription agreement with Spanco Power Distribution Ltd., by way of subscription of equity shares on preferential basis.”
Recently, Spanco Power Distribution Ltd. won the bid to distribute power in Nagpur for 15 years, starting on May 1, 2011. Spanco will supply power to the area falling within the municipal limits of the city which lies west of Wardha Road and south of Amravati but excludes Chinchbhuvan and Sitabuldi. The bids were called by the state-owned Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company for appointing licensee to distribute electricity in parts of Nagpur for 15 years. Other bidders for the license included power equipment maker Crompton Greaves and utilities firm Reliance Infrastructure. CESC and Tata Power had also put in their bids for the Nagpur licence, the state utility website showed. Spanco Ltd was up 6.62% today and closed at Rs 161.90 on the BSE today.
Spanco Power Distribution was incorporated in 2011 to handle the power distribution activities of the company. The parent firm Spanco provides large technology infrastructure projects across government, power and telecom service provider’s space. Spanco Ltd. also has a presence in the BPO space spread over four continents and catering to India, USA/Europe, Middle East and African markets.
The power sector has increasingly witnessed a lot of traction from PE funds. Recently, Avantha Power had raised Rs 217 crore from KKR by placing 9 per cent stake through a pre-IPO placement deal. Some of the largest deals include $425 million in Asian Genco by a consortium led by Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and $305 million fund-raising by GMR Energy from Temasek, IDFC Private Equity, Ascent Capital and others.
