Toll road firm MEP may launch InvIT in Q4 FY17, to raise around Rs 1,200 crore
Toll road firm MEP Infrastructure Developers plans to raise over Rs 1,200 crore from an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT), which it hopes to launch in the last quarter of this fiscal, a top company official said. “We have already submitted our proposal for forming InvIT in March to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for its in-principle approval and we expect to get the clearance this month,” company’s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Jayant Mhaiskar told PTI here. Once the in-principle approval is in place, the company will start the process for forming the InvIT, he said. “We are hopeful of launching it before March 2017. InvITs will help us release our capital which is locked in the current on-going projects and the same came be redeployed over a period of time,” Mhaiskar said. When asked how much was the company planning to raise through the model, he said, “The valuation cannot be disclosed at this stage and we will be able to give the number after the closure. But as a part of InvITs, 49 per cent of the debt has to be reduced and to that extent we can raise funds. Our current debt stands at around Rs 3,000 crore.” In 2014, capital market regulator Sebi allowed the launch of real estate investment trusts (REITs) and InvITs to get easier access to funds. In April last year, the company launched its initial public offer to raise Rs 324 crore which was mainly utilised to repay its debt. MEP Infra, which is largely into two areas of business – toll collection and OMT (operate, maitain and transfer), is also eyeing 15-20 per cent increase in topline by 2018-19 fiscal, he said “Apart from the toll collection and the OMT (operate, maintain and transfer) businesses, we have, along with our Spanish joint venture partner Sanjose India Infrastructure and Construction ventured into the construction of roads under the hybrid annuity model. We hope this business will drive our growth in the years to come,” Mhaiskar said. At present, its order book for the hybrid annuity project stands at around Rs 2,600 crore which is to be executed over the next 30 months. Rod Woodson Jersey
Auction fails as no bidder turns up for Kingfisher brands
Auction of brands and trademarks of Kingfisher Airlines turned out to be a damp squib today as lenders failed to attract a single bidder for sale of these pledged assets at a reserve price of Rs. 366.70 crore in their efforts to recover unpaid loans from beleaguered Vijay Mallya. This is the second failed attempt by the 17-bank consortium led by state-run behemoth SBI to recover some money from Mallya, after an earlier auction of Kingfisher House — the erstwhile headquarters of the long-defunct airline — met with a similar fate, with no bidder coming forward. The items on sale during today’s e-auction included the Kingfisher logo as also the once-famous tagline ‘Fly the Good Times’. The other trademarks on sale included Flying Models, Funliner, Fly Kingfisher and Flying Bird Device. The reserve price for the trademarks was kept at Rs. 366.70 crore, which is not even one-tenth of the price at which it was pledged as a collateral for the loan. Sources, however, said the reserve price was “too high” for any bidder to come in. “There were no bids, possibly because the reserve price was considered very high. Though the reserve price was set much lower than its original valuation at the time of taking the brand as collateral, people still found it to be high,” a banking source said. The online auction began at 11:30 am and lasted for an hour without any success. It was conducted by SBICAP Trustee Company on behalf of lenders under the Sarfaesi Act. The Kingfisher brand itself was valued at over Rs. 4,000 crore by Grant Thornton when the airline was at its peak. In its annual report for 2012-13, KFA said that at its peak, it was the largest airline in India, with a five-star rating from Skytrax. The airline’s brand had been registered separately from the Kingfisher beer trademarks. A senior banker said, “The interest for this auction could have been from existing airline operators, but no one will come. It is better to start a new airline company than to buy this brand and revive it.” In a previous attempt at recovery of dues, which have ballooned to over Rs. 9,000 crore after taking into account the interest component, the banks had conducted an auction of Kingfisher House last month, but did not find any takers at a reserve price of Rs. 150 crore. Sources said the lenders might now try to lower the reserve price in both the cases in their future efforts to sell these pledged assets. Shelby Miller Womens Jersey
Surat’s Ventura AirConnect awarded intra-state flight operations
Marking the celebrations of Gujarat Foundation Day on May 1, the Chief Minister Anandiben Patel on Saturday handed over a commitment letter to Surat-based airline Ventura AirConnect to start intra-state flight services connecting Ahmedabad with major cities of the state. The airline has won the state government’s tender to launch intra-state air connectivity. “We have got intimation from the Ministry of Civil Aviation and DGCA to restore our permission and we will be back to sky in the next few days. We have won the tender to provide intra-state connectivity in Gujarat,” said Kartikey Garasia, CEO, Ventura AirConnect, airline owned by a group of Diamond merchants from Surat with company name Diamond Aeronautics Pvt Limited. The company is expected to provide services for 3 years with government subsidy of Rs. 22,900 per flying hour for monthly 200 hours. At the Gujarat Air Show in Ahmedabad on Saturday, the chief minister Patel handed over the commitment letter to the airline, which operates a fleet of 9-seater Cessna (single turboprop) 208B Grand Caravans. In 2015, it started flights to connect Surat with Bhavnagar and Rajkot in Saurashtra but later its services were suspended for security reasons. However, the same will be resumed with increased number of flights connecting Ahmedabad with other key cities of the State. “Post the award of the tender, now Ahmedabad will be connected to Bhuj/Kandla, Surat, Keshod, Porbandar and Rajkot. The city of Surat will be connected to Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar. These are initial routes and we plan to add more in future. The flight timings will be published once appropriate permission for parking slots at particular airports are received,” Garasia informed. The company has also laid out plans to increase fleet size by adding three more aircrafts. The company is confident of getting sufficient traffic to operate for more than 400 flying hours a month. T. J. Carrie Authentic Jersey
Huda to expedite completion of railway over bridge on Dwarka expressway
Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) is planning to complete the construction of railway-over-bridge (RoB) at the junction of sector 100 and 37D at Basai village before August. RoB is on Northern Peripheral Road (NPR) known as Dwarka expressway and completion of the bridge will help in early completion of the road. It will fill a crucial connectivity gap on the 18-km-long road. Estate officer of Huda Tarun Pawaria said additional chief secretary of department of town and country planning (DTCP) P Raghvendra Rao has directed to complete the RoB works before August. “We are planning to make a section of Dwarka expressway -from Kherki Daula to Palam Viharoperation by August 22, for this completion of RoB is necessary,” said Pawaria. Huda recently had a meeting with the railway to expedite the construction of RoB. “Section of RoB, passing over railway track, is being constructed by railway,” said a senior Huda official adding that that they are coordinating with railway to complete the work without any hassle. Last year in September railway had allotted work order to a company for construction of a portion of RoB, passing over railway track. Out of the 1200 metre long RoB railway will construct 128 metre area, passing over the railway track, rest will be constructed by Huda. For the construction of three-lane RoB it will cost around Rs 153 cr. “We are hopeful to complete the works on time,” said the Huda official. Along with this Huda is also going to connect the expressway with Pataudi and Basai roads and all nearby sectors by August. “It is likely to improve connectivity to at least 25 sectors on either side of the road,” said he. According to sources, roads in sectors 83-84, 82-85, 8186, 99-102, 102-102A, 120-103, 103 106, 109-112, 110A-111 are ready. After this stretch is opened, all these roads will be connected with the expressway. Most of the residential projects in these sectors are either complete or near completion. The six-lane Dwarka Expressway, which was conceived over eight years ago, starts from Dwarka in Delhi and ends at Kherki Daula. It was expected to divert 40% of the traffic on NH-8 between Gurgaon and Delhi, but till date, work on only 14.33 km of the road has been completed. The state government has fixed a new deadline of June 2017 for its completion. Matt Nieto Jersey
Fashion startups no more unfashionable for angel investors
Angel investors who were wary of the fashion and lifestyle space in India are taking greater interest in such startups, going by the number of investments made. Six investments have been made in the space so far this year, according to data shared by Venture Intelligence with ET, up from four in 2015 and one in 2014. The value of investments made in fashion companies stood at $38 million in 2015, up from $21 million in 2014. One of the investee companies is StylFlip, a social platform to sell and shop pre-owned apparel and accessories, which got an undisclosed sum from real estate developers Raj Gala Shah and Zaheer Memon. YourNest Angel Fund led a pre Series A round for Fashalot, an online to offline location based store discovery platform. Jaipur-based fashion retail platform Yufta raised a pre Series A round from Ajay Data, a founding member of the Rajasthan Angel Investor Network. Hippily , a Mumbai-based shopping personalisation app raised $250,000 in seed funding from investors like Sridhar Ramaswamy , senior VP , ads and commerce at Google and Rakesh Mathur, founder of Junglee. The top fashion deals of 2015 were -Voylla, which got $15 million from Peepul Capital; Relevant E-S, Wooplr and Clovia getting $5 million each from investors like Tiger Global, Helion Ventures and IvyCap Ventures; and Voonik getting $6.5 million from a funding round led by Sequoia Capital. “Investors certainly seem to be taking a greater interest in fashion and lifestyle brands in India and are putting in money where they see growth. It’s a reflection of the changing demographics in India and customers evolving everyday. There’s more focus on looking good and spending on fashion,” said imitation jewelle ry company Voyl la’s co-founder and COO Jagriti Shringi. Shringi said Vo ylla, which secu red the funding in October last year has used it to exfootprint. It is adop pand its retail footprint. It is adopting an omni channel strategy and will open 100 stores this year, and will expand globallly to store in store formats in markets like Dubai and the US besides kiosks in major malls across India. Twenty stores are operational currently . “Investments in the fashion space have reached a consolidation phase now. There’s a big opportunity in the private labels and the big companies will focus on private labels,” said Navin Honagudi, investment director at Kae Capital. The fund has invested in a Fynd, a fashion discovery app that ties up local retailers and lets users locate and track inventory in those stores. Sean Rodriguez Jersey
Bihar liquor ban spikes economy in UP towns
The ban on liquor consumption and the influx of tipplers from Bihar is spawning a parallel economy along the bordering districts of Uttar Pradesh that are seeing not just a boom in the sale of liquor, but also a sizeable jump in the trade of liquor accompaniments, including snacks, bottled water and soft beverages. “We are noticing an extraordinary rise in the demand for bottled water and soft drinks in plastic bottles from local distributors that supply in the Ballia, Ghazipur and Chandauli border areas. Over the past fortnight, sales have grown 20% when compared with figures for the whole month of April last year,” said Santosh Shukla, an east UP distributor of a leading cola company. Bottled water and soft beverage traders aren’t the only ones benefiting from the boom. The owners of small eateries and makeshift shops of ‘chakhna’ (food stuff consumed by tipplers along with liquor) too have reasons to feel ‘blessed’ for doing business in the vicinity of the liquor shops. Ramjatan took a break from serving up ‘tamatar chaat’ to busy guzzlers near the Naubatpur border liquor shops to speak to TOI. “Till March-end, we never returned home after clearing the total stock of food items brought on our thelas (handcart). But for the past 20 days, we have been having to arrange for extra stocks of tomatoes, potatoes and other edibles to meet growing demand,” he said. Among the other snack ‘thelas’ near the liquor shops at Naubatpur, puffed-grain sellers seemed to be the big crowd pullers, with sellers of egg-based food items doing brisk business as well. The Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and beer shops at Naubatpur have seen over 600% growth in business over the past three weeks, according to records with the UP excise department. Not everyone is all happy at the boom, though. Manmohan Gupta, who has been running a small shop that serves snacks, soft drinks and bottled water opposite the IMFL shop at the Bharauli border, is elated at the rise in sales at his kiosk, but says: “On the basis of the past 20 days’ experience, I feel that dhandha ab ganda ho gaya hai (the trade has now turned dirty).” “People coming in from Buxar (Bihar) are demanding chilled water bottles, but stocks have been running out fast. On expressing our inability to provide chilled bottles, they start quarrelling”, said Gupta. Shoots back Santosh from a neighbouring kiosk: “Ganda hai par dhanda hai, aur dhanda toh badha hai (though it has turned dirty, fact is that trade has grown).” According to some excise department officials, the IMFL and beer shops at the Bharauli border have posted 900% and 600% growth in business, respectively, between April 1 and 25. Traders in the area revealed that if chilled water and soft drink bottles were in demand for the dilution of liquor for immediate consumption, non-chilled bottles were being purchased to ferry liquor back across the border into Bihar-since carrying liquor bottles ran the high risk of being caught by excise department personnel or the police in Bihar. Robby Anderson Authentic Jersey
Indian executives open to working with startups: Survey
A half of Indian executives polled are open to work with start-ups as partnering with new-age companies bring in agile and innovative methods, says a survey. However, the other half is still sceptical about working with a start-up, according to annual EY-CIO Klub’s Enterprise IT trends and investment survey titled ‘the startup gene: a way forward’. The survey, which revolves around the idea of the startup gene, noted that the CIOs of the country can benefit from partnerships with start-ups and by imbibing the attitude of start-up entrepreneurs. About a half of 294 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) polled have shown faith in implementing start-up practices to get their work done. This was supplemented by the fact that 30 per cent of the respondents were aligned towards ‘Do It For Me’ approach, wherein the company would want to bring in external expertise to perform certain specific tasks, rather than doing it in-house. “Partnering with start-ups ensures that work is done in an agile and innovative manner. This can save cost, help adopt the latest in technology and become a disruptive force in the industry. However, the report claims that to be more effective, CIOs should promote these values in their own firms. The only way to adapt to change is to take the risk of adopting it,” the survey noted. The survey said, “50 per cent of the CIOs are open to working with start-ups, while the other half is still sceptical.” Besides, 81 per cent of the CIOs consider that Internet-of-Things is the most imminent technology. Other trending technologies are high speed data transfer, wearable technologies and 3D printing. Cyber threat tops the list of key issues that give a CIO sleepless nights. While half the companies have in-house analytics functions, the other half believe that there is greater value in engaging with outside, specialised talent, as per the survey. “CIOs have seldom been challenged for implementing an established Enterprise Resource Planning, but they have almost always been questioned when they recommend engaging with start-ups to acquire specialised expertise,” EY India National Leader (Risk Advisory Services) Nitin Bhatt said. “However, this is rapidly changing. We are now seeing CIOs being questioned by their executive leadership when they do not leverage the start-up ecosystem for enhancing product capability, reducing cost and furthering competitive advantage,” he added. Troy Polamalu Authentic Jersey
Top 6 VCs refuel with $2.5bn in a year despite few exits
Venture capital firms may have cooled off from the heady investing days of the past two years, but they continue to shore up capital amid a slackening funding environment. Flipkart’s early backer Accel, one of the most prolific venture investors in the country, is on course to raise a $400-500 million fifth India-focused fund, which is expected to close by the year-end, sources familiar with the matter told TOI. Accel’s new fund comes at a time when the top six VCs have amassed more than $2.5 billion in the past year to be ploughed into Indian startups, raising hopes that the sluggishness in deal activity is temporary. One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture funds, Accel doubled down on seed-stage investments last year, writing numerous cheques for $500,000 to $1-2 million. A majority of these startups will be in the market to raise subsequent rounds of financing at a time when entrepreneurs are being asked to batten down the hatches and spend every dollar judiciously. “Initial conversations about the new fund have already begun with limited partners, or LPs (investors in funds). The amount is yet to be finalized, but it will be larger than their previous fund size,” a person privy to the information said. Accel had officially announced its Indian Fund IV in March last year. An emailed questionnaire sent by TOI to Accel on the new fund did not elicit a response. In March, Accel US famous for its early wager on social networking site Facebook in 2005 announced it had raised around $2 billion, split between a $500-million early-stage investing corpus and $1.5 billion for later-stage, growth investments. Most of the bigger sized venture funds are able to reserve far more capital for their existing portfolio companies and are able to participate in growth-stage financing rounds. Accel began life in India in 2008 when it acquired Erasmic Venture Fund, and has since backed hundreds of companies like BookMyShow, Freshdesk and Myntra, besides its most famous bet on Flipkart where it put $1 million in 2009. It is currently deploying its $305-million India Fund IV, which has invested in startups like food-delivery venture Swiggy, local services app UrbanClap, and rental marketplace RentoMojo. Exits still few & far between While these funds have bulked up with billions of dollars in dry powder for India investments, exits remain imperceptible for most VCs here. “The lack of exits for investors in India is a symptom of the problem. The real problem so far was the lack of depth in the market. So a lot of money was invested without a deep enough market opportunity. However, looking out at the next ten years, investors in the VC asset class in India realize the market depth has arrived and exits shall follow. So one has to look forward, else it will be a rear-view mirror-based decision,” says Avnish Bajaj, MD at Matrix Venture Partners, an investor in transportation app Ola and online classifieds firm Quikr. Matrix recently topped up its $300-million India fund by $110 million and will raise its third India fund of around $300-400 million after a year. General partners who steer India-dedicated funds say LPs fundamentally believe in lndia’s internet story, buttressed by a growing smartphone penetration. As against international outfits which invest from a global corpus like Norwest Venture Partners, India-focused funds have empowerment which gives them the speed and helps them adhere to the local nuances. India funds have a better construct and hence chances of better returns and exits, says a veteran VC who did not want to be identified. Last year saw unprecedented fund-raise activity among venture funds in India as Kalaari Capital, SAIF Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and Accel were awash with new capital to pump into the fast-growing domestic startup ecosystem. But the largest one of them all came in December last year when Sequoia Capital raised $920 million. In 2015, these investors along with Tiger Global, SoftBank, DST Global and a posse of hedge funds provided a slug of money to consumer internet firms. Together, $7 billion was scooped up by these tech-based startups, according to Tracxn, which collects data on private companies. The first quarter of this year though has been evidently slow paced, with a drop of at least 50% in deal value at $301 million. Arthur Moats Womens Jersey
How IGI Airport moved from 101 rank to world’s best
In four years, the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport is expected to contribute 22.2% to Delhi’s GDP. Also on cards by 2020 are an expanded Terminal 1D and a brand-new swanky Terminal 4 as it looks to cement its place among the world’s best. Over the last few years, the IGI has added many feathers to its cap. Come Tuesday, it turns 10 as a private entity. Ever since it broke the shackles of government control in 2006, the airport has grown by leaps and bounds in more ways than one. Sample this: Over the last decade, the IGI has seen an increase of almost 2 lakh in air-traffic movement, catering to nearly 32.2 million more passengers. An airport that had a global ranking of 101 in 2006 made the summit in 2014 (in the 25-40 million passengers per annum category), and hasn’t relinquished the spot since then. Also, the IGI handles the highest passenger and cargo volumes in the country. It serves 120 destinations through 50 international and nine domestic passenger airlines. In addition, there are four international and two domestic freighter airlines. Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), the GMR-led consortium that runs the IGI, cites a recent survey by the National Council of Applied Economic Research to drive home its point. At an estimated Rs 29,470 crore, the airport contributed 0.45% to the national GDP and 13.53% to the Delhi GDP in 2009-2010. DIAL expects this amount to go up even further to Rs 90,950 crore by 2020. The consortium has submitted its master plan to the aviation ministry for approval. It proposes to demolish the Haj Terminal (Terminal 2) and make Terminal 4 operational by 2020. Also, a fourth runway would double its flight operation capability. One casualty of all this would the Hotel Centaur, though. “The IGI master plan was prepared in 2006. It’s revised every 10 years,” said DIAL CEO IP Rao. Rao took TOI through the airport’s decade-long journey. In 2007, it figured among the worst airports in terms of Airport Service Quality (ASQ). “Now, it ranks as world’s No. 1, a spot that it has held for two consecutive years — 2014 and 2015,” Rao said. Rao attributed this achievement to a “dedicated and consistent” customer-focused approach. “The alignment of all stakeholders, including the airlines, CISF, customs, immigration, ground handlers, support services and others, has had an important role to play (in the success).” The task of providing a “world-class” airport in an extremely tight timeline of 37 months wasn’t an easy task, though. “When DIAL took over, there were several hurdles. Nearly 1,000 families were residing on the airport premises for over five decades,” said Rao. Another tough ask was to enhance capacity at terminals 1 and 2 with minimum interruption to existing operations. Getting rid of encroachments and acquiring the required machinery and manpower were a few other challenges. In developing the cargo facilities, IGI took all stakeholders-airlines, handling agents and freight forwarders — on board. The same goes for Aerocity, which has emerged as a preferred hospitality and commercial hub for NCR-Delhi. Technology, of course, has had a vital role to play. Rao elaborated: “Take, for example, the Airport Operations and Control Centre (AOCC), a state-of-the-art facility that allows operations from a remote and secluded facility.” The airport is also keeping pace with the need to go green. “We have put in place advanced pollution prevention infrastructure and set up rainwater harvesting plants apart from running eco-friendly vehicles to ferry passengers,” Rao said. Skal Labissiere Authentic Jersey
AAI eyes overseas markets for its in-house e-billing solution
Airports Authority of India (AAI) planning to aggressively tap overseas markets for its in-house developed ‘e-billing’ solution that can be used by air navigation and airport services providers. The fees collected through this solution, which would help entities in data gathering, e-invoicing and collection of tariff from airlines at a single place, accounts for almost 35 per cent in AAI overall revenue. As part of its efforts to expand its revenue stream, the national airports operator is scouting for opportunities overseas to sell its niche product. Developed in-house, the electronic billing solution for data, e-invoicing and collection of tariff from the airlines is being used by AAI for several years now. Considering its reliability and performance over a period of time, AAI is now looking to provide the system in overseas markets, AAI Member ( Finance) S Suresh said told PTI. AAI has already made a brief presentation to the aviation authorities of Cambodia and Indonesia. “They seem to be keen about it,” he said. Over the years, the system has been augmented to provide for a comprehensive e-billing system for data gathering, invoicing and collection in one place. “This is also the first time that AAI will be pitching its product in overseas markets,” Suresh noted. Recently, AAI had entered into a preliminary pact with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for providing a comprehensive e-billing solution to air navigation service providers and airport service providers for data gathering, e-invoicing and collection of tariff from airlines. The airports operator expects to post an all-time high revenue of Rs 10,000 crore in the last financial year (2015- 16). During this period, the profit is anticipated to be around Rs 2,000 crore. The estimated eight per cent growth in the topline which stood at Rs 9,285 crore in 2014-15 would be on the back of surge in passenger traffic and aircraft movement. A “Miniratna’ enterprise, AAI owns 125 airports in the country and out of them, 95 are operational. Ethan Pocic Authentic Jersey