IRB Infra becomes the first company to list privately-placed InvIT

Private trust becomes first to get listed on NSE post SEBI guidelines

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IRB Infrastructure Trust (IRB InvIT), a privately placed InvIT sponsored by highway developer IRB Infrastructure, on Monday listed itself with the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the trust announced.

The move came months after the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.

"The valuation of the trust units was determined basis third party evaluation and further endorsed by Trusts’ investors as well. The value ascertained comes to around 16 times FY 24 revenue, which will further keep appreciating with more projects coming in," the trust said.

The trust currently has 49 per cent unitholding from GIC Associates, a sovereign wealth fund of Singapore. The development is also a step in the direction to open these new-age asset classes to public markets. So far, overseas pension funds and other institutional investors have been dominant in this space.

"The idea behind this was to have better disclosure norms and bring in more transparency," Virendra Mhaiskar, Chairman of the trust and Chairman & Managing Director of IRB Infra.

In the last four years the project portfolio of the Trust has made stupendous progress and has achieved a size of almost Rs 27,000 Crores Enterprise Value with balance concession life of 18+ years, he added.

The Trust has acquired 10 Build Operate Transfer (BOT) road assets with 6,275 lane kilometres, in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Goa, Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The IRB InvIT sponsor, IRB Infra, has so far seen a year-on-year growth of 27 per cent to Rs 352 crore in its toll income in FY23. 

Regulators have been introducing new guidelines for these asset classes which have seen their market base grow over the past years. Last year, REITs and InvITs were allowed to issue commercial papers, widening their financing avenues.

The Centre is also working on softening the tax impact for unitholders of InvITs. In the public sector, units of the Power Grid InvIT have been listed on NSE since 2021, while the National Highways Authority of India recently invited retail participation in its debentures.

An InvITis a collective investment scheme similar to a mutual fund, which enables direct investment of money from individual and institutional investors in infrastructure projects to earn a small portion of the income as return, according to SEBI.