Saturday, June 08, 2013

GMR Infra gearing for an exit from Turkish airport

Bangalore: The Bangalore-based publicly-held infrastructure developer, GMR Infra, is understood to have kick-started the process to exit from the Istanbul Sabiha Gokçen International Airport, which it manages in Turkey.
In this project, the company holds 40 per cent stake, involving a capital expenditure of $550 million, since May 2008. While GMR is understood to have invested a little over $60 million as its equity share in the company, senior GMR Group officials say they will be looking to realise at least 1.5-2 times their investment. That translates into a little over $100 million, as and when an exit is structured. Senior GMR Group management officials said this exit was part of the articulated strategy the company embarked upon mid last year. The strategy mainly is 'develop-build-create value-divest'. An official GMR Infra spokesperson, however, declined to comment, saying it was speculation.
During the year ended March 2013, the airport, which has a capacity to handle 25 million passengers annually, saw a traffic of 15.34 million passengers, growth of 11 per cent from 2011-12. Its revenue for 2012-13 grew 30 per cent from the previous year to Rs 325 crore. But the company's loss in the year stood at Rs 123 crore, an increase of 18 per cent from that in 2011-12, mainly on account of a 14 per cent increase in financing costs.
08/06/13 Raghuvir Badrinath/Business Standard
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