IDFC exposure to Gujarat set to rise

Stating that steps taken by the state government were more conducive to attract private sector investment, Rajiv Lall, CEO and managing director of Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd (IDFC) felt that Gujarat will continue to dominate IDFC's exposure for the next few years.

For the year ended March 31, 2005, Gujarat accounted for 26 per cent of IDFC's exposure.

Total finance approvals of Rs 5,300 crore have been made in the state and the outstanding approvals in the state stood at Rs 1,408 crore, the highest in any state. "We have indeed financed projects in a wide range of sectors in Gujarat," Lall said.

The sectors in which IDFC has assisted in Gujarat include roads, hospitals, power, telecommunications, ports, energy and pipelines.

Some of the key projects in Gujarat that have been financed by IDFC include plant of Torrent Power Generation Ltd, the Vadodara-Halol toll road, project of Reliance Power, projects of Petronet LNG, Mudra Container Terminal, IVCRL infrastructure, Idea Cellular, Gujarat State Petronet, Positra, Adani, Fascel, Essar Power, Akshaya Apollo and the Ahmedabad-Mehsana toll road.

"In 2004-05, IDFC was the lead arranger for the entire debt requirement of Rs 2,167 crore for the 1110 MW LNG-fired power plant of Torrent Power Generation. IDFC also successfully completed the debt syndication for the Positra Port," said Lall.

He added that the Positra project is unique. Apart from being the lead arranger of loans, the company was closely involved in getting the project through.

Lall said that apart from financing projects, IDFC has also financed projects in different segments of the energy sector.

"We have been involved in projects concerning energy generation, transmission and distribution," said Lall.

Lall said that markets permitting, IDFC will come up with an initial public offering by June and a draft red herring prospectus with Sebi is scheduled to be filed in the next few days.

The IPO will be part secondary and part primary," he added. In addition, IDFC will also raise a corpus of Rs 1300 crore, two thirds of which will be raised from overseas investors," he said.