Nava Bharat seeks strategic investors for Odisha ops

The identification of the investors and evaluation of restructuring options are in progress, company says it is looking for investors with captive mineral resources

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Hyderabad-based Nava Bharat Ventures Limited is looking for strategic investors who could use its Odisha assets for captive purposes as these operations have been undergoing 'regulatory restrictions'.

In February, the company had commissioned and synchronised with the Odisha power grid two 64 Mw power units at Kharagprasad village in Dhenkanal district where it has a 75,000-tonne per annum capacity ferro chrome plant.

The board of directors at its meeting yesterday decided to create two separate special purpose vehicles by segregating power and ferro chrome operations for roping in strategic investors.   

“The operations of Odisha unit, comprising ferro chrome operations and captive/independent power generation, have been affected on and off by regulatory restrictions concerning sale of power and supply of chrome ore aside from un-remunerative merchant power rates and volatility in ferro chrome market,” the company said in a BSE filing.

Stating that the identification of the investors and evaluation of restructuring options were in progress, the company said it was looking for investors who would have captive mineral resources. The company proposes to offer equity in both the SPVs to make them captive units for the investors under the prevailing regulations.

The company  is a diversified organisation with interests in power generation, ferro alloys, mining and agri-business besides overseas presence in some of these areas such as mining.

Its financial performance in the fourth quarter ending March, 2013, was under stress though for the full year there was a 31.80 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 238.31 crore as compared with Rs 180.81 crore in the previous year. Sales rose 10.45 per cent to Rs 981 crore in the year ended March, 2013 from Rs 888.17 crore in the previous year.

Nava Bharat scrip lost Rs 5 or 2.83 per cent to close at Rs 171.60 on the BSE on Friday.