Agam SPV to invest $300 mn in airports

Cayman Island-based Agam SPV Six, which will be funded by a subsidiary of UK-based investment management company Atlas Group, has applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to set up a wholly owned company and bring in foreign direct investment of $300 million (Rs 1,200 crore) to develop airports in the country.

In its application to the government, Agam SPV has said that it would like to focus on developing low-cost airports to meet service the fast-growing airline traffic in the country.

The proposed company, to be called Indian Infrastructure Investment SPV, will be funded by Agam Fund which is managed by Sigma Asset Management (Guernsey), a wholly owned subsidiary of Atlas Capital Associates. The Atlas group handles over $4 billion of assets across the globe and provides advisory and portfolio management services.

Sigma Asset Management has been managing investments in emerging markets for over a decade. Its popular funds - the Emerging Market Fund and the Discovery Fund - were launched in 1997 and have a majority of their allocations in Asian markets.

Since 2003, Sigma has made a growing allocation to Indian equities through various funds under its control. Very recently, the group launched Axis IND, a fund focussing on India equities.

Airport infrastructure has attracted the attention of a bevy of airport developers across the country. The Tatas, for instance, have tied up with Singapore's Changhi to bid for airports across the country.

A slew of Indian companies, which include Lanco, the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Punj Lloyd, Larsen & Toubro, GVK and GMR have shown interest in bidding for more airports which are being opened up to the private sector.

GVK and GMR are respectively developing the airports at Mumbai and Delhi.

In all, 24 out of 35 non-metro airports will be developed under the public private partnership mode.

After Amritsar and Udaipur which were recently bid for, the ones coming up next are at Vizag and Ahmedabad. The government also plans to develop low-cost airports at several places like Shimoga, Hassan, Mysore, Shirdi, Sholapur, Chandrapur, Amrawati, Singhdurg and Kolhapur.