Azure Power may shelve US listing plan

Azure Power Global Ltd may call off its $100 million US listing as planned earlier, said two people aware of the development.

The Delhi-based renewable energy firm had planned its stock’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange and filed its application with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December last year.

“The IPO (initial public offering) plans are off,” said a person aware of the development requesting anonymity.

Another person, who also didn’t want to be identified, confirmed the development.

This comes in the backdrop of a consolidation in the renewable energy sector. In the largest deal in the country so far, Tata Power Co. Ltd signed an agreement to buy the renewable energy business of Welspun Group for Rs.9,249 crore, including debt, in June.

Also, SunEdison Inc. has put its entire portfolio of 1,318 megawatt (MW) in India up for sale with Rothschild (India), a financial advisory group, running the sales process termed Project Joule.

Azure Power has a solar power generation project portfolio of around 900MW across 15 states.

Experts believe this is a natural process with regard to the scenario pertaining to Indian developers and the lack of long-term investors.

“There is great potential in the solar power circuit. However, this is a capital-intensive field where companies continuously need to raise capital, which is particularly difficult in the country’s capital-scarce scenario,” said Vinay Rustagi, managing director at Bridge to India, a renewable energy consultancy. 

It currently costs between Rs.4-5 crore per MW to set up a solar power project. According to the government, around Rs.71,201 crore has already been sanctioned to finance green projects.

“There is a value chain in the process where developers, after setting up and developing the project, sell it off to long-term investors having the financial appetite to carry it forward,” added Rustagi.

Queries emailed to Azure Power and its external spokesperson on 26 July remained unanswered. 

The Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government has set a target of adding 175 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy projects by 2022. Of this, 100GW is expected to be in the solar power domain and 60GW in wind power. India has an installed capacity of 26.8GW of wind and 7.6GW of solar power.

“Azure Power Global Limited (“Azure”) today announced it has publicly filed a registration statement on Form F-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) relating to a proposed initial public offering of its equity shares. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not been determined. Azure intends to list its equity shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “AZRE”. Barclays will act as a book-running manager for the proposed offering,” the company announced on 18 December in a statement.

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