Macquarie, SBI to buy majority stake in GMR Jadcherla Expressways

In a statement, GMR said it will first receive around INR1.9 billion ($35 million) and a further INR110 million on completion of certain conditions, for  a total of INR2 billion.

GMR Jadcherla operates the Farukhnagar-Jadcherla highway in Andhra Pradesh. The project, part of National Highway 7, started commercial operations in February 2009. GMR said it originally invested INR1.4 billion for the 74% stake.

According to LiveMint, the sale comes as GMR seeks to raise around INR22 billion in equity to finance projects it has already won. The company is said to have been plagued by a succession of crises, from the cancellation of the Male airport contract in the Maldives to a shortage of natural gas to operate power plants.

"This transaction, the seventh that MSIF has completed to date, demonstrates the successful execution of MSIF's investment strategy in the Indian infrastructure sector, including the roads sector," said Suresh Goyal, CEO of Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Management.

Macquarie, which manages $353 billion in assets globally, partnered with  State Bank of India (SBI) to set up the MSIF which had its final close in March 2011 at $1.17 billion, below its $3 billion original target. Last week Macquarie Capital was said to be targeting $1.1 billion for its new fund focusing on South and Southeast Asia with part of the corpus is likely to be deployed in Indian infrastructure.

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• Topics
• South Asia
• Infrastructure
• Infrastructure
• Infrastructure
• Buyouts
• India
• Macquarie Group
• Infrastructure India
• buyout