India's Reliance Infrastructure sells power unit to Adani Transmission

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Reliance Infrastructure, part of Reliance Group, said on Thursday it has agreed to sell its Mumbai power generation, transmission and distribution business to a unit of Adani Enterprises for around 188 billion rupees ($2.93 billion).

The deal will provide Reliance Group controlled by billionaire Anil Ambani with a 30 billion rupees cash surplus, Reliance Infrastructure said in a statement.

Reliance Group has previously announced plans to invest an undisclosed amount in its recently started aerospace defence manufacturing business as well as in its engineering, procurement and construction businesses.

Adani Transmission Ltd, the power distribution arm of Adani Enterprises, will pay an initial 132.51 billion rupees for Reliance's Mumbai power business and 55.50 billion rupees at a later date based on certain approvals, the Reliance statement said.

For the quarter which ended in September, Reliance Infrastructure, also known as RInfra, posted a net profit of 5.44 billion rupees and reported total debt of around 140 billion rupees.

($1 = 64.0850 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee; editing by Jason Neely)