Edelweiss Alternatives To Buy Out L&T Infra Development Projects For Rs 6,000 Crore

Edelweiss Alternatives on Saturday entered into an agreement with Larsen & Toubro and Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board to pick up their 100 per cent stakes in L&T Infrastructure Development Projects at an enterprise value of Rs 6,000 crore.

Edelweiss Alternatives—an alternative ivestment fund management platform—in a statement said that the transaction is being executed by a fund managed by Edelweiss Alternatives and it also involves absorbing the operating team.

The portfolio of the target company comprises eight roads and one power transmission asset, spanning 4,900 lane kilometres and 960 circuit kilometres, respectively.

Following this acquisition, the infrastructure platform will scale up to 26 assets with cumulative annual revenue of nearly Rs 2,700 crore. The platform will be a diverse mix of power transmission and substations, renewables and highway assets.

Sreekumar Chatra, managing director of the infrastructure yield strategy fund, said these assets have a proven track record of operations, are geographically dispersed and have long residual life, which is "consistent with our investment strategy".

Subahoo Chordia, head of infra funds at Edelweiss Alternatives, said on completion of this acquisition, "there will be a high-quality diversified infrastructure portfolio of 26 assets across 13 states, making us a leading infrastructure investor in the country".

Edelweiss Alternatives' infra fund, which the company calls yield plus strategy, has Rs 9,500 crore of infrastructure assets under its domain. It focusses on investing in power transmission, renewable power and highways, among others. It is amongst the largest such funds in the country and with capital commitments from both domestic and global investors.

Edelweiss Alternatives pioneered private debt in the country with the launch of the USD 230 million fund in 2010 and has since then grown to be one of the largest alternative fund management platforms with an asset under management of USD 5.5 billion now.