Cube Highways in talks to sell stake to Canada pension fund for $200 m
Singapore-based Cube Highways and Infrastructure Pte Ltd is in stake-sale talks with Canadian pension fund Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (CDPQ) to raise around $200 million.
Both have invested heavily in India’s infrastructure sector.
Cube Highways is a joint venture between private equity firm I Squared Capital and International Finance Corp. (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank.
CDPQ, the second-largest pension fund in Canada, has invested around $3 billion till date in the infrastructure sector in India, where it set up an office in March 2016.
“Cube Highways is in talks with CDPQ to raise around $200 million,” said a person aware of the development, requesting anonymity.
“Cube Highways has been trying to raise capital,” said another person who also didn’t wish to be identified.
Cube Highways has around 1,000 lane-km of highways in its portfolio. This is through the Jaipur-mahua Tollway Private Ltd, Mahua Bharatpur Expressways Ltd and Western UP Tollway Ltd.
I Squared Capital plans to invest as much as $1 billion in India’s infrastructure sector. It has already invested around ₹1,000 crore through its investment platform Cube Highways and Infrastructure Pte Ltd and has committed to investing in assets worth ₹2,000 crore to its rooftop solar platform Amplus Energy Solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Queries emailed to Gautam Bhandari, founder of I Squared Capital, and spokespersons for Cube Highways, IFC and CDPQ on Monday remained unanswered.
Indian telecom companies are offering aggressive tariff plans to retain customers and poach high-paying users from rival operators as they seek to arrest a decline in their revenues amid a tariff war.
The move follows the launch of Jio Prime by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, under which the firm is offering free voice calls and data with a daily cap of 1 GB for ₹303 a month. Jio’s Prime plan aims to retain its 100 million user base after its free services end on March 31 as well as poach subscribers from other networks.
Responding to Jio’s move, India’s largest telecom company Bharti Airtel Ltd introduced a ₹145 plan and a ₹349 plan. The cheaper plan offers 14GB data per month with a 500MB cap per day and unlimited calls to Airtel numbers. The ₹349 plan has unlimited calls to all networks.
Vodafone India Ltd, on the other hand, is targeting Jio’s ₹499 plan by offering 15 GB of data for the first three months at the same price and 6 GB thereafter, according to a call received by this reporter to port his number to the Vodafone network.
A person aware of Airtel’s plans said these plans are meant for customers who reach out to them proactively to move out of the network.
An email sent to Airtel remained unanswered at the time of going to press. A Vodafone India spokesperson declined to comment.
Airtel is urging sales partners to push these plans to customers. Channel partners are being given special commissions on these plans—double the 2.5-3% tha they get on other plans.
According to a February 27 report by Credit Suisse, Airtel’s plans are not openly marketed but targeted at higher-arpu (average revenue per user) cus tomers through the Airtel app, or the plans are disclosed when one walks into a store for cash recharge. “Even subscribers with more than ₹600 monthly spend (like some of our team members) are getting these offers as of now (particularly if these subscribers have shown a drop in spend recently),” the report said