GMR Infrastructure’s airport arm has raised $131 million (Rs 584.60 crore) from the private equity arm of Standard Chartered Plc. and funds managed by JM Financial-Old Lane. The investment comes after GMR Airports Holding Ltd, which runs Delhi and Hyderabad airports, had raised another $200 million in March this year, taking the total investment to over $330 million.
The Bangalore-based infrastructure major said that the investors would subscribe to compulsorily convertible preference shares in the company. This is the same route through which SBI Macquarie Infrastructure Investments, a private equity fund jointly owned by the State Bank of India and Macquarie, invested in the company earlier this year.
The investors in the current round include Standard Chartered Private Equity (Mauritius) III Ltd, JM Financial-Old Lane India Corporate Opportunities Fund I Ltd, JM Financial Trustee Company Pvt Ltd (on behalf of JM Financial India Fund III), JM Financial Products Ltd and Build India Capital Advisors LLP (part of Vikram Pandit’s Old Lane, now acquired by the Citigroup).
The share price of GMR Infrastructure was trading at Rs 33.2, up 1.37 per cent at 11:37 am on Thursday, July 7.
GMR Airports, a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure, holds stakes in two Indian and two overseas airports which are run by the group. It holds 54 per cent stake in Delhi International Airport Ltd, 63 per cent in GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd, 40 per cent in Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport and 77 per cent stake in Male International Airport.
The airports business accounted for more than 40 per cent revenues of GMR Infrastructure in FY11. The company reported 26 per cent increase in net income to Rs 5,773.8 crore and a loss after tax of Rs 1047 crore due to sale of Intergen. The airports business reported 65 per cent increase in revenues to Rs 2,395 crore during the year.
“In the airport division, GMR reported a revenue growth of 108.8 per cent YoY to Rs 872 crore in Q4 FY11 on the back of the healthy revenue growth of GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (37 per cent YoY) and Istanbul Airport (34 per cent YoY), and the consolidation of Male Airport revenues (Rs 58.9 crore net revenue for Q4 FY11),” an ICICI Securities report has recently stated.
Last year, the group’s energy arm GMR Energy Ltd had raised over $300 million from private equity investors including Temasek, IDFC PE, Argonaut Ventures and Ascent Capital.