BW Communities

Piramal, IDFC PE, SNC-Lavalin In infra Tie-Up

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Ashok Piramal Group (APG), IDFC Project Equity Fund, and SNC-Lavalin Group Inc -- Canada's biggest engineering group and one of the world's largest -- on Tuesday agreed to jointly develop road and highway projects in a public-private partnership. Piramal Roads Infrastructure will own 51 percent equity in the partnership, India Infrastructure Fund (IIF), managed by IDFC Project Equity, will hold 39 percent stake, while SNC-Lavalin will own the remainder, the companies said in a joint statement. "Together with APG and SNC-Lavalin, we believe that we have put in place the foundations for an aggressive and profitable growth in the Indian roads' BOT (build, own, transfer) business and hope to have a portfolio of projects in excess of $1 billion over the next 3 to 4 years," managing director of IIF Aditya Aggarwal said in a statement. The partnership will commit $250 million-$300 million in equity in a combined fund over the next 3-5 years, and the group plans to eventually list the partnership, said Rajeev Piramal, vice-chairman of the Ashok Piramal Group. India has pledged to spend $1 trillion on upgrading its creaking power plants, railways and ports in the five years to 2017 to deal with a key bottleneck to continued growth. Private cash has been pencilled in for half of that. "We were looking for a team that would stay for all future road bids. And the Piramal Group and SNC bring complementary strengths and really supplement our own credentials," M.K. Sinha, chief executive of IDFC Project Equity told reporters. "We are looking at this as a permanent consortium for all future road bids." (Reuters)