Suzlon takes over its non-paying asset

To sell US wind park with six weeks

Suzlon Energy today acquired one of the wind parks, which owes it as much as $228 million (around Rs 1,358 crore). The wind turbine maker has been struggling with the receivables for over two years from the Illinois-based Big Sky Wind Park.

The wind park which has 114 installed turbines is owned by a bankrupt power generator, Edison Mission Energy. Suzlon is looking to release its receivables by selling this wind asset within a month-and-a-half, company officials told in anonymity. Pittsburgh-based EverPower Wind Holdings is the front runner to buy the wind power asset, which is located close to Chicago.

This decision to take over and sell the wind farm comes after Suzlon tried to restructure the money owed by Edison. The talks however did not result in a deal, according to a communique made by Edison to the stock exchanges.

The wind park will now form the biggest asset owned by the Pune-based Suzlon group's in the United States. Suzlon acquired the 240 megawatt wind farm was done through a fully-owned subsidiary called SWECO. Suzlon has troubles of its own as it had restructured its debt worth Rs 9,000 crore last year. It has ever since been fulfilling conditions set forth by its 12 bankers who were involved in the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) process.

Amongst other conditions, Suzlon's promoters which includes the chairman Tulsi Tanti and family, will have to pump in capital into the company as well as sell off some of the assets that it owns. The company had been denying the sale of its German subsidiary RePower (now called Senvion). But, there have been rumours in the market about raising money from a public offer for it, on the London Stock Exchange.

"Suzlon is exploring various options to rebalance its capital structure and accordingly we would relook at our capital structure during the next financial year 2014-15," Suzlon said in a communication to the stock exchanges on the possible listing Repower.