Lanco Infra drops plans to bid for Australian co; to invest Rs 35K cr in thermal power plant

Lanco Infratech Ltd. | Engineering - Construction | Construction & Infrastructure | BSE: 532778 | NSE: LITL

16 Jun 2011 Evaluate

Lanco Infratech has dropped plans to bid for Australia’s Premier Coal, owned by coal-to-retail conglomerate Wesfarmers as it was not too clear about the rules on monopoly in that region. Griffin and Premier are the only two coal mines in that part of Australia and the firm already owns one. Lanco would focus on developing Griffin and is still looking for acquisition opportunities in Australia, Indonesia and South Africa. Lanco acquired Australia’s Griffin Coal mines for A$750 million ($760 million) in December.

Also, the firm would invest Rs 35,000 crore for setting up thermal power plants in the country and may partly raise the amount by hiving off its power business. Lanco Infratech plans to have a power generation capacity of 15,000 Mw by 2015 for which it requires investment to the tune of Rs 35,000 crore. The current installed capacity of the company is 3,300 Mw. About 9,300 Mw projects are under operation and under advance stages of construction and work would also commence on the remaining 6,000 Mw in the next 3-4 months as the funds would be tied up by that time.

The company is in talks with various banks and financial institutions for funding the debt portion of the Rs 35,000 crore investment. The project would be funded at a debt and equity ratio of 80:20. Lanco Infratech, which is currently sourcing the power equipment from China, is open to the idea of manufacturing it on its own.crack crack