Mistry eyes $1 bn from sale of solar assets
India’s Shapoorji Pallonji Group plans to seek about $1 billion by bringing outside investors into its solar unit, as it embarks on a series of asset sales across the 153-year-old conglomerate to reduce debt.
The group, owned by reclusive billionaire Pallonji Mistry, will sell as much as 30% in the solar engineering arm of Sterling & Wilson Pvt, said Jai Mavani, executive director at conglomerate’s flagship company. The funds would be raised through a pre-listing stake sale followed by a public offering.
A separate listing of Eureka Forbes Ltd., the water purification unit of publicly traded Forbes & Co., and sales of commercial real estate will also be considered, Mavani said. Part of the proceeds will be used to pare debt, he said.
“We have leveraged ourselves to the level that we believe is sustainable but, beyond a point, we want to cregrowing ate equity for ourselves,” Mavani said in a November 15 interview. “Be it Sterling & Wilson or Eureka Forbes, their real value is a multiple of what’s in the balance sheet.”
The ₹40,000 crore ($5.6 billion) group, which built the Sultan of Oman’s palace and is now helming one of India’s biggest affordable home projects, plans to tap the market at a time when debt funding is getting scarcer after India’s worst liquidity crunch in two years.
The conglomerate spans engineering and construction, energy and infrastructure, real estate, textiles, financial services and water. Fresh funds will also help the group tap opportunities in the world’s fastest- major economy, where the government plans to spend billions on infrastructure and has pledged to provide housing for all by 2022.
Group firms have raised bonds and loans equivalent to at least $4.3 billion since the beginning of 2014, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Pallonji Mistry, patriarch of the founding family, has a net worth of $18.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Much of that fortune coming from its holdings in the company controlling the $100 billion Tata Group. Mistry’s son Cyrus was chairman of Tata Group before being ousted in a boardroom coup in 2016.
The Shapoorji Pallonji Group, founded in 1865, is responsible for some of financial capital Mumbai’s most iconic structures including the Reserve Bank of India buildings and the Tower wing of Taj Mahal Palace hotel. It’s now building what the group says may well be the world’s largest affordable housing project.
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