The largest public sector bank of India, the States Bank of India (SBI) has recently announced that it has acquired a 7.79 per cent stake in the Orissa-based ARSS Infrastructure Projects Limited, in a private equity (PE) deal. The officials from the bank have informed that SBI has signed the deal in order to acquire 10 lakh shares out of ARSSs total equity base of 1, 25, 54,000 shares and the rate was set at Rs 10 each. The other sources added that though the bank was thinking of acquiring some more stakes, the ARSS did not allow it to acquire more than 8 per cent. The reason behind the restriction is that ARSS is planning to issue an initial public offering very soon.
The Director of the ARSS Infrastructure, Mr. Sunil Agarwal was talking about the fact and also about the other plans of the company at the moment and said, "We are planning to file the Red Herring Prospectus (RHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) for the IPO before January 30, 2008". However, he refused to say anything about the value of the deal with SBI and said that it might affect the forthcoming IPO of the company.
When requested to say something more about the plans of the company in near future, one of the top officials said that ARSS is now intending to reduce another 20-25 percent stake through the IPO. According to the official, they are expecting the IPO to be operational towards the end of 2007-08 or in the first half of the financial year of 2008-09. The sources from the industry are informing that the ARSS Infrastructure has established itself as one of the largest infrastructure companies in the eastern zone of India and it is mainly engaged in the business of construction of railway lines, highways, irrigation and building projects. The sources also said that it has already chalked out an expansion plan in order to enter into some new markets in India and also in abroad.
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| Posted : 1/22/2008 |
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