| GMR to delink realty proj from Delhi airport |
| BS Reporter / New Delhi February 5, 2008 |
| GMR, the lead private partner in Delhi International Airport (DIAL), has decided to delink the controversial real estate project from the development of the airport. DIAL had earlier cleared a plan under which refundable deposits of around Rs 2,750 crore raised from developers of the real estate project (which includes hotels and commercial space) would be used to part-fund the Rs 8,950 crore airport modernisation. It has now mooted an alternative plan, which has been accepted in-principle by the civil aviation ministry, under which the amount of Rs 2,750 crore would be raised through equity from stakeholders in proportion to their participation in the project. After the government raised various issues on its refundable deposit scheme, the development of real estate had been put on hold. However financial institutions and banks, which were expected to disburse loans in the region of Rs 4,950 crore to finance the project made it clear that they would not do so until full financial closure of the project was undertaken. Under the new scheme, GMR which holds 50.1% in DIAL will have to pump in around Rs 1,386 crore (in addition to Rs 593 crore as per the previous model), AAI which has a 26% stake will have to shell out around Rs 719 crore (in addition to around Rs 308 crore committed earlier) and other partners will have to put in Rs 645 crore (in addition to Rs 299 crore). The total equity infusion from all the shareholders will now amount to around Rs 4,000 crore, up from Rs 1,200 crore as per the earlier model. Originally, of the total project worth of Rs 8,950 crore, only Rs 1,200 crore was supposed to come as equity, Rs 50 crore through internal accruals, Rs 4,950 crore from bank loans, and Rs 2,750 crore for real estate projects was to come as refundable deposits. However, the real estate project plan ran into troubled waters when DIAL insisted the deposits collected from real estate developers were not part of the top line revenues that were supposed to be shared with the Aiports Authority of India (AAI). The deposits were being used as equity to finance the project. Both the civil aviation ministry and AAI opposed the arrangement saying that not sharing the deposits would cut down AAI |
