Srei Equipment to raise Rs 7.5k crore

Srei Equipment Finance, the 50:50 joint venture between Srei Infrastructure Finance and BNP Paribas, said it would raise up to Rs 7,500 crore debt in the current financial year to fund the increasing infrastructure demand in the country.

“We are planning to raise Rs 7,500 crore debt in the current financial year. The fund will be mobilised through term loans from banks, securitising and bonds,” Srei Infrastructure Finance Executive Director K K Mohanthy said. Some quasi-equity would also be raised in the second half of the current financial year, he said, adding however, that the promoters were not planning to infuse any fresh capital in the joint venture at the moment.

 

Srei Equipment Finance had Rs 900 crore authorised capital. The company does not have any plan to take term deposits though it is registered with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as a deposit taking non-banking financial company. In its first year of operation, it had disbursed Rs 5,500 crore and hoped to raise it to Rs 10,000 crore during FY10. “At the beginning of the fiscal, we thought that the lull will continue and as such, the disbursement target was kept at the previous year’s level. However, in the current scenario, we believe it would be in the range of Rs 10,000 crore,” Mohanthy said.

Srei Equipment Finance funds infrastructure equipment and projects. It also finances infrastructure development and provides advisory in all verticals of infrastructure.

The company, Mohanthy said, planned to expand its business to new verticals such as agriculture equipment, medical equipment, information technology and other equipment classes.

In the IT domain alone, the company plans to clock over Rs 500 crore business in FY10 from just Rs 50 crore in the previous fiscal.

“We are carrying out the due diligence to enter into the agriculture equipment vertical. We hope to start the business by the second half of the current fiscal,” Mohanthy said.