Realty major Ansal Properties & Infrastructure today said it is planning to raise funds up to Rs 1,500 crore through the issue of securities on a private placement basis to qualified institutional buyers.
The board has approved "to issue securities up to Rs 1,500 crore by way of qualified institutions placement basis to resident or non-resident QIBs", the company said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
The board would also seek the approval from its shareholders for making public issue or any other issue, from time to time for raising a sum of up to Rs 2,500 crore.
The realty firm is also planning to increase the limit of foreign institutional investors' (FII) in the company to 49 per cent. At present, the limit is at 24 per cent, it said.
The firm would seek the approval from its shareholders, by way of postal ballot, for the various ways of fund raising, it added.
"The raising of funds via QIP route is a capital raising exercise for April to provide both business and financial strength to significantly enhance company's flexibility," Ansal Properties and Infrastructure Vice-Chairman and MD Pranav Ansal said.
"This QIP will also be used to partly fund and support the two large hi0tech integrated townships consisting of hotels, buildings, shopping malls, IT parks and group housing in Lucknow and Dadri," he added.
Reeling under acute cash crunch, a host of real estate companies are now resorting to QIP and preferential allotment of warrants to promoters to strengthen their cash balance.
Realty firms like Unitech, Parsvnath, Sobha Developers, HDIL, Puravankara, Anantraj Industries, Akruti City and Orbit Corp are looking to raise additional long-term funds through sale of shares, mostly through QIP, where shares are sold to institutional investors.
Unitech plans to raise over Rs 11,000 crore, whereas HDIL is planning to raise about Rs 3,000 crore through QIP and Rs 850 crore through promoter warrants.
Further, Parsvnath and Anant Raj Industries are also planning to raise Rs 2,500 crore and Rs 2,000 crore, respectively.
Shares of Ansal Infra cloed at Rs 60.35, down 4.21 per cent on the BSE.
