GMR Infrastructure has raised around Rs 520 crore of debt from India Infrastructure Finance Co Ltd (IIFCL) for modernising Delhi Intetrnational Airport. Sources said the company, based in this city, raised a total of around Rs 2,600 crore to fund the modernisation plan, including the debt from IIFCL.
Queries to GMR remained unanswered. It has a total debt of Rs 9,283 crore for the airport arm, of the total net debt of Rs 15,300 crore.
Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) is a joint venture consortium of the GMR Group, with majority holding of 54 per cent, Airports Authority of India with 26 per cent, and Frankfurt airport operator Frafort AG and Eraman Malaysia with 10 per cent each. While GMR is the lead member of the consortium, Fraport AG is the airport operator in this project.
The project, being developed under a public-private partnership model, has an initial concession period of 30 years, extendable by another 30 years. Since bagging the contract in 2006, DIAL has upgraded the existing terminal, along with commissioning of a new runway in 2008.
Recently, DIAL completed the first phase of the new terminal (T3), with a capacity to handle 60 million passengers per annum. GMR has another three airports: GMR Hyderabad International Airport, Istanbul airport and Male International airport in its portfolio.
The airport division has shown significant traction in business growth in the third quarter of the current financial year. Revenue had witnessed a 66 per cent rise to Rs 626.4 crore with an 18 per cent increase in operating profit during this period. Overall contribution of the airport division has also risen to 46 per cent of total revenue in this period as compared with 35 per cent a year earlier.
GMR Infras posted a net loss of Rs 22.3 crore for the third quarter ending December, as compared to Rs 9.2 crore profit last year, on the back of higher capacity costs. Revenues for the quarter, however, went up by 27 per cent to Rs 1,360 crore for the quarter, as compared to Rs 1,066 crore in the same quarter a year before, due to sound business growth in airports.