British International Investment (BII) has trimmed its investment commitment to Mahindra Electric Automobile Limited (MEAL) and once again extended the timeline for buying more stake in the subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.
M&M and BII have come to a mutual agreement under which the UK’s development financial institution’s last tranche of investment into Mahindra Electric Automobile will be Rs 650 crore, down from Rs 725 crore set earlier, the Indian automotive company said in an exchange release.
Also, the final leg of investment will by completed by 31 March, 2025, instead of the already extended deadline of 31 December, 2024.
More than two years back, BII had agreed to invest Rs 1,925 crore in Mahindra's EV division in two stages - the first stage was be completed by June 30, 2023 and the second stage after achieving certain milestones in 2023-24.
In February last year, M&M said BII would invest up to Rs 1,200 crore in MEAL by March 31, 2024 and invest the balance of Rs 725 crore by July 2024 In May, M&M said that it had agreed with the development finance institute's plan to extend the timeline for the last tranche of investment of Rs. 725 crores to December instead of July 2024.
Now, the total investment by BII Group in MEAL would be Rs 1,850 crores, with BII Group having a shareholding in the range of 2.64-4.58% of the EV maker's share capital, on a fully diluted basis. BII was earlier expected to hold 2.75-4.76% in the unit.
M&M has previously said that it intends to raised up to Rs 12,000 crore to fund its EV business in the next three years. Besides BII, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek in 2023 agreed to invest as much as Rs 1,200 crore in August last year.
UK government backed BII earlier this month said it has invested in three companies in the electric vehicle sector - Everest Fleet, TI Clean Mobility, and Vecmocon - amounting to investments worth $33.5 million to fuel faster transition towards clean transport. At the time, BII's total commitments to India's EV sector touched $328 million.
