Hyderabad-based NSL Power, is looking at raising a Rs 250-crore private equity (PE) fund to fuel its thermal and renewable energy capacity expansion, said chairman and managing director M Prabhakar Rao.
“We are in discussion with five domestic PE companies who are keen to invest in our energy business. We expect the deal to crystalise by the end of this calendar year,” he told Business Standard on the sidelines of the recently-concluded BioAsia 2011.
NSL Power has about 100-megawatt (Mw) wind power capacity in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. It is planning to set up wind farms with a capacity of 400Mw in various parts of the country, besides three hydro power plants with 155-Mw capacity in Himachal Pradesh. In all, the company has projects in the pipeline for additional capacity of 1,675 megawatt .
On the group’s flagship company Nuziveedu Seeds, Rao said the company was setting up seed processing plants — one each in Gujarat, Orissa and at Karimnagar in Andhra Pradesh — involving an investment of Rs 100 crore.
Nuziveedu Seeds, which was established in 1973, currently has processing units in Hyderabad, Medak, Mahabubnagar and Rangareddy districts with a total capacity of 70 tonne per hour. To be funded through internal accruals, the new plants will have a processing capacity of 20 tonne per hour, and will be fully operational by the end of this month, he said, adding the company at present enjoyed a 10 per cent share of the Rs 7,000-crore seeds market (both public and private) in the country, which it wanted to double in the next five years.
Rao said Nuziveedu Seeds expected revenues of Rs 650 crore this financial year, as against Rs 500 crore last fiscal. “We are targeting to achieve revenues of Rs 1,000 crore in the next financial year as we are aiming at selling 10 million packets of cotton seeds, besides increasing sales of our vegetable seeds like corn and rice,” he said.