Sterlite Power Drops 14.7% Stake in IndiGrid for Rs 840 Crore

Sterlite Power has sold 14.7 percent stake it held in India Grid Trust (IndiGrid) for Rs 840 crore to institutional and HNI investors.

Sterlite Power, a leading global power transmission player, has announced that it has sold 14.7 percent stake it held in India Grid Trust (IndiGrid) for Rs 840 crore (unit price of Rs 98) to institutional and high net worth individual (HNI) investors. Sterlite Power is the sponsor of IndiGrid, India’s first infrastructure investment trust in the power sector which saw its initial offer in 2017.

Pratik Agarwal, Managing Director, Sterlite Power, said, “Sterlite Power is proud to have played a role in creating India’s first power sector InvIT which has grown over the years with participation from marquee investors. We will now focus on our core business as the developer of power transmission assets. Were main committed to executing asset transfers of about Rs 6500 crores as per the framework agreement with IndiGrid.”

“We firmly believe that InvITs will remain a powerful platform to meet the large-scale financing requirements of the Infrastructure sector. The global financial markets will remain in yield-seeking mode for a considerable period, and this will provide enough capital supply to well-managed REITs and InvITs”, he further added.

Sterlite Power will continue to be the sponsor of IndiGrid and remains a shareholder of Sterlite Investment Managers (SIML), the investment manager of the InvIT. Having built a successful platform and completing the required lock-in period, the company will now focus on its core business as a developer of transmission assets in India and Brazil – two of the world’s largest markets for greenfield projects. It enjoys a leading position in both these geographies.

The company is increasingly focusing on transmission assets designed to evacuate renewable energy, and many of its assets under development connect the national grid to clean and green sources of power.

In June, the firm had acquired Vapi II North Lakhimpur Transmission Ltd (VNLTL), a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) from power sector lender PFC’s arm PFC Consulting Ltd. Through this acquisition, the company is planning to execute a large inter-state transmission system (ISTS) project – Western Region Strengthening Scheme-XIX (WRSS-XIX) and North Eastern Region Strengthening Scheme-IX (NERSS-IX).

Sterlite had won this ISTS project via a tariff-based competitive bidding (TBCB) process, under the Build, Own, Operate and Maintain (BOOM) model for a period of 35 years.