SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd has firmed up plans to float a $500 million infrastructure fund, while it expects merger with Quippo Infrastructure to be completed within the next five- six months. SREI managing director Hemant Kanoria said after the SREI ? Quippo merger is over, Srei Sahaj would be integrated with the merged entity since there would be a lot of synergies between the two businesses. SREI Sahaj, a subsidiary of SREI Infrastructure, is an e-governance initiative envisioning bridging of the digital divide between urban and rural India. On the infrastructure fund, Kanoria said the $ 500 million fund would be the first international fund to be floated by SREI with the purpose of financing Indian infrastructure projects. He said SREI was scouting for foreign investors to float the new fund. ?SREI currently has four domestic funds under its control managing a total corpus of Rs 440 crore,? Kanoria said. SREI on Tuesday reported a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 156.80 crore on a total income of Rs 972.16 crore for 2009-2010 against a PAT of Rs 82.57 crore on total income of Rs 851.53 crore for 2008-2009. While PAT grew by 89.90%, total income grew by 14.17%. SREI?s disbursement grew by 36% at Rs 9,000 crore in 2009-2010 against Rs 6,600 crore in 2008-2009. While equipment financing was worth around Rs 6,000 crore, project financing was worth around Rs 3,000 crore in 2009-2010. SREI?s net interest margin (NIM) was at an average 4% in 2009-2010 against an average 3.5% in 2008-2009. According to Sunil Kanoria, vice chairman, SREI’s net interest margin is likely to stabilise at 3-3.5% in 2010-2011. The company targets a 25-30% growth in its disbursement for 2010-2011. For the quarter to March 31, 2010, SREI reported a PAT of Rs 47 crore against a PAT of Rs 4 crore for the year-ago period. Disbursements were Rs 3,500 crore in the fourth quarter of 2009-2010, against less than Rs 1000 crore during the same period last fiscal, Kanoria said.
He said the company was focusing in financing road, power and mining projects. SREI has so far participated in 13 road projects, of which five projects worth Rs 5000 crore have been bagged between March and April of the current fiscal.
? We have equity participation between 10% and 49% in all the 13 road projects, some already implemented and some being implemented either on built operate and transfer (BOT) basis or design built operate and transfer (DBOT) basis,? Kanoria said.
