Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) is understood to be exploring options to invest $100 million in KVK Energy & Infrastructure to part-fund new and upcoming projects of the Hyderabad-based infrastructure company. According to investment bankers close to the deal, IL&FS may invest through IL&FS Investment Managers, its private equity arm, and also partly through debt from one of its group arms.
KVK Energy had earlier raised more than Rs 200 crore from Old Lane, a US-based fund founded by Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit. KVK Energy has four operational projects with a cumulative capacity of 70 Mw and is putting up five more with an additional capacity of about 1,550 Mw, primarily fired by coal. The company is also preparing the blue print for an additional six projects with capacities of up to 3,675 Mw over a period of time. KVK Energy could not be reached for comments.
KVK is also actively pursuing opportunities for sourcing coal in India, Indonesia and Mozambique. It has signed a joint venture with Midwest Holdings Ltd to explore and develop a coal mine project in Mozambique and with Advaita for developing coal assets in Indonesia.
The scenario of private equity interest in India’s power sector has been on an upswing and during last year a little more than $2 billion was invested in this sector and as much as $1 billon is expected to be ploughed in shortly. Infrastructure majors like Reliance Power, GVK and GMR have been pretty active in raising private equity funds through special purpose vehicles.