Greenko Group, India’s most-funded renewable energy company, is set to acquire a stake in a large hydro power project that was developed in a public-private partnership and has been dogged by controversies.
They are going to buy a stake in Teesta Urja Ltd, which operates a 1,200 megawatt (MW) power plant in North Sikkim.
The Sikkim government owns a tad above 60% stake in Teesta Urja while five private-sector companies own the rest. The Sikkim government is not selling its stake.
This means that Greenko will most likely buy the stake from one of Teesta’s other minority investors.
Teesta’s largest minority stakeholder is Singapore-based Asian Genco Pte Ltd, with a stake of almost 25%, according to the power company’s annual report for 2018-19. Asian Genco is a private equity-backed company that has been embroiled in its own legal battles over corporate governance issues.
Teesta’s other shareholders include Mumbai-listed power trading company PTC India Ltd with a stake of 5.62%, and Delhi-registered companies Athena Projects Pvt. Ltd, APPL Power Pvt. Ltd and Indus Clean Energy (India) Pvt. Ltd.
The stake being bought and the valuation at which the deal is likely to be sewn is not clear.
But Greenko is likely to pick up a stake of at least 10% and up to 40%, as stake sales by government bodies usually call for open tenders rather than bilateral deals.
Given the debt and equity on the books of Teesta Urja, it is likely to command an enterprise valuation of around Rs 12,000 crore ($1.6 billion).
The company’s revenue from operations rose to Rs 1,613.5 crore for 2018-19 from Rs 1,305.8 crore the year before. It posted a loss of Rs 313 crore for 2018-19 compared with Rs 701 crore the year before.
This is a Syndicate News-Feed; edited by Clean-Future Team