Kolkata, January 21, 2019: Infrastrucure institution Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited (SREI) has taken the decision to increase the capital of both its infrastructure finance and equipment finance businesses. This decision has been taken keeping in mind the smooth facilitation of the businesses in maintaining and strengthening their current leadership positions further.

 

The move will result in listing of the company's equipment finance business through a composite scheme of arrangement and amalgamation (‘scheme’) and give shareholders of SREI an opportunity to directly participate in the high growth equipment finance sector. The board of directors of SREI approved the scheme, which is subject to regulatory, statutory and other necessary approvals.

 

Hemant Kanoria, Chairman and Managing Director, Srei, said, "In our journey of three decades, we have been creating significant value for our shareholders. Today's decision will lead to substantial increase in net shareholders' fund and allow shareholders of Srei to directly hold shares of both infrastructure finance and equipment finance businesses. The move is value accretive for our shareholders as they will have monetisable assets in the form of listed shares of both the businesses.

 

The proposed capital augmentation scheme is expected to further infuse around Rs 500 crore in our equipment finance business and will pave the way for multi-fold growth in its revenue and profit. Global and domestic investors will also be able to take advantage of the opportunities in the high growth equipment finance sector by directly investing in our equipment finance business."

 

The growth in the infrastructure space, propelled by the government's substantial budgetary allocation in road, irrigation, mining, railways, ports, affordable housing and other infrastructure sub-sectors, has improved the growth prospects of infrastructure finance and equipment finance businesses. In the last few years, there has been significant growth in sales of construction, mining and allied equipment (CME) and the industry expects the demand to remain strong in the coming years. This has made the capital augmentation programme of both infrastructure finance and equipment finance businesses pertinent.