 "Sharp drop in GMR Infrastructure stock forces promoters to pledge more")
A sharp 50% drop in the stock of price of GMR Infrastructure has forced the promoters to increase their pledge by close to 10%. The promoters, who hold little over 70% in the Rs 10,000 crore GMR Infrastructure, had already pledged close to 29% of their holding as a cover for various borrowings and now the pledge has gone up to little over 38%.
It is understood the promoters had raised around Rs 350 crore when the share price was at Rs 18 a piece and with the price plummeting to little over Rs 11 a share, the promoters have pledged a little over 119 million share to a clutch of financial institutions including L&T Finance, Macquarie Finance, STCI Finance, IFCI Finance, Motilal Oswal Finance, SICOM Ltd and Aditya Birla Finance.
GMR Infrastructure, has been facing intense pressure over its high leverage of as much as close to 4 times on a net debt of Rs 38,000 crore and has been grappling to figure out how it can leverage on its operational assets. The company has over the current calendar year managed to free off close to Rs 2,500 crore of assets and address the debt to a certain extent and is understood to be looking at assets worth an additional Rs 7,000 crore during the current fiscal.
The stock by noon is trading at its 52-week low at Rs 11.25 a share and on Tuesday lost as much as 7.3% on the NSE.