Shrem InvIT in talks with highway developers, eyes public listing in 2 years

By Swaraj Baggonkar

Shrem InvIT, an infrastructure investment trust floated by Shrem Infrastructure, will go for public listing in the next 18-24 months after achieving an asset under management (AUM) of $3 billion, or ₹24,000 crore, a company official said.

The Trust, which buys only fully completed projects, acquired 10 highway projects from infrastructure firm Dilip Buildcon in early 2022.

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Nitan Chhatwal, chairman of Shrem InvIT, said, “We plan to go for public listing in 1-2 years. We are privately listed on NSE as of now. We will go for public listing when we will have an AUM of $3 billion.”

Last year, Shrem InvIt did a private listing on the NSE for raising ₹600 crore. Chhatwal did not mention the fundraising amount targeted from the public listing. The InvIT has 24 operational projects as of now, excluding the acquired 10 projects.“Our AUM right now is ₹6,700 crore and we will be adding another ₹6,700 crore before March. We want to take it to ₹24,000 crore in two years. Discussions are on with different developers for the acquisitions and these can happen in 3-6 months,” Chhatwal added.

The hybrid annuity model (HAM) was launched by the government in early 2016. It is a variant of public-private partnership (PPP) and is designed for projects not viable on the build, operate and transfer. A HAM project has a life of 15 years. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) guarantees repayment of 40% of the project cost in a staggered manner.

“Earlier BOT and EPC were the only projects that the government was giving out. Through HAM, the government has taken a lot of responsibility on their heads and this has insulated the banks in a very big way. Banks were very scared of putting money into infrastructure projects but now they are keen to invest,” Chhatwal added.

NHAI, last year, had set up its InvIT whose units were listed on the NSE and BSE giving it an enterprise valuation of ₹8,012 crore. The state-owned authority had launched its InvIT as a mode to monetise operational roads, as it has the largest share under the National Monetisation Pipeline.

In its first offering, NHAI InvIT had attracted two international pension funds, namely Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, as anchor investors.