India Grid Trust (IndiGrid), a power infrastructure investment trust, has acquired another transmission asset, East North Interconnection Company Limited (ENICL), from its promotor Sterlite Power for a value of US$ 134 million.
IndiGrid was set up by Sterlite Power to own inter-state power transmission assets in India, and this sale marks Sterlite Power’s eighth asset transfer to India Grid Trust.
With this, IndiGrid’s asset portfolio will increase to nine power transmission projects, with a total network of 20 power transmission lines spanning across more than 5,800 circuit kilometres across 13 Indian states. The assets under management (AUM) will swell by 10% to US$ 1.6 billion.
ENICL is a strategic asset which is crucial for power exchange across north eastern and eastern region of India. It consists of two 400 KV transmission lines with a total 900 circuit kilometers across Assam, Bihar and West Bengal.
IndiGrid has another US$ 855 million (Rs 65 billion) pipeline of transmission projects under the framework agreement with Sterlite Power providing visibility of US$ 2.4 billion (Rs 180 billion) of AUM over next two years.
“ENICL is one of the few critical transmission lines which connects the north east of India to eastern India. We look forward to commissioning more assets in the next financial year and transfer about another one billion dollar worth of assets to IndiGrid”—Sterlite Power managing director Pratik Agarwal said in a press statement.
IndiGrid CEO Harsh Shah added, “This acquisition is in line with our strategy to acquire accretive assets with long term certainty of cash flows. Our focus is to not only ensure stable distribution to unit holders by owning assets with long term contracts but also grow it with accretive acquisitions.”
Earlier in this financial year, IndiGrid raised US$ 330 million (Rs 25.1 billion) of capital by way of preferential issue, which was subscribed by US private equity investor KKR and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC amongst other investors.
Currently, IndiGrid owns eight operating projects consisting of 18 transmission lines with more than 4,900 circuit kilometers length and four substations with 7,735 MVA transformation capacity. It has AUM worth US$ 1.45 billion (Rs 110.56 billion).
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