Reliance Infra eyes Rs.1 lakh cr. worth road, rail, water projects
Reliance Infrastructure is bullish on winning bids for more than half of the Rs.2,00,000 crore of infrastructure projects likely to come this year in an attempt to sore up its order book that fell to less than Rs.3000 crore.
The company, with its presence primarily in the roads and power sector, is looking to bid for ‘Namami Gange’ or cleaning river Ganges, High Speed Bullet Trains and inland road transport projects.
Lalit Jalan CEO Reliance Infrastructure told: “Things are improving across all sectors. We are looking at an opportunity of Rs.2 lakh crore, of which we will bid for opportunities worth over Rs.1 lakh crore in this financial year and increase our order book to over Rs.30,000 from Rs.3,000 crore.”
“Couple of years ago, we didn’t know anything about defence, now we are of the leading private sector firm in defence sector. Similarly, for making bullet trains and other projects we are looking for international partnerships.” Mr. Jalan said.
Reliance Infra with a standalone debt of Rs.16,000 crore is looking to become debt free after selling its portfolio of road assets and stake in Mumbai distribution business.
The company recently sold its cement business to Birla Corp for Rs.4,800 crore and is in talks with Canadian Pension fund Brookfield to sell its road portfolio valued at Rs.10,000 crore. In November 2015, Reliance Infrastructure entered into a non-binding agreement with Canadian pension fund Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) to sell a 49 per cent stake in its Mumbai power transmission and distribution business but the deal is yet to be concluded.
“The 11 road assets are spread across the country,” Mr. Jalan said. “It is a multi-billion-dollar deal and takes times to complete. The stake sale plans in the Mumbai discom has been delayed. The tariff order was expected to come in June and has not been approved yet. Once we have that we will go ahead.”