Bangalore: With GMR Infrastructure forced to give up on its $511-million Male airport, the latter has become the second major global project for the Bangalore-based company to be lost. In late November 2010 two years ago, GMR Infra had sold its 50-per cent stake in US-based power generation company InterGen for $900 million, saying it intended to focus on opportunities in India.
GMR Infra had held InterGen asset for two years after acquiring a 50 per cent stake for $1.2 billion mid-2008. However, while selling this to Huaneng Group, a Chinese major, GMR retained a 800-Mw gas-fired power project in Singapore, expected to be commissioned late 2013. GMR has already offloaded 30 per cent in this $800-million project to Malaysian oil & gas conglomerate Petronas, which is being executed in a 57:43 debt to equity ratio.
With the exit of InterGen and the airport project in Maldives, GMR Infra is left with an airport project in Turkey, two coal mines in Indonesia and one coal mine in South Africa as part of its global portfolio, besides two hydro-projects in Nepal due to be commissioned by 2016.
The performance of Turkey airport is far from convincing for GMR, as during last fiscal it bled as much as Rs 104 crore on a topline of around Rs 680 crore. Continuing the losses at this airport, during the first half of this fiscal, the project had a loss of Rs 45 crore on a topline of Rs 400 crore. GMR Infrastructure owns 40 per cent in this airport, while the rest is held by Malaysian Airports and Limak Holdings of Turkey.
09/12/12 Raghuvir Badrinath/Business Standard
