Tata Power eyes Rs 3,000-crore divestment, revamp of green assets to cut debt

Mumbai: Tata Power aims at selling some non-core operations and restructure its renewable energy business to pare debt and consolidate its India operations. The company, which has an installed capacity of 12,742 MW, aims at raising Rs 3,000 crore from divestment of assets in 2020-21, despite the disruption caused by Covid-19 pandemic in the global economy, managing director Praveer Sinha told ET in an exclusive interaction. “Our attempt is to reduce the debt to the levels of Rs 25,000 crore by the end of this fiscal from Rs 44,000 crore, it is an indicative target. We are looking at various means to do it. We have already started our divestment process,” Sinha said. In April, Tata Power completed sale of its 50 per cent stake in South African wind power company Cennergi to JV partner Exxaro Resources for Rs 660 crore. It is already in pact to sell stake in PT Arutmin Indonesia, and is now in talks to sell stake in its asset in Zambia, BSSR coal mine in Indonesia and shipping business.“Even in this challenging environment we received the money for our deal in South Africa. We are in the final stages of signing the deal for the sale of our shipping company and hopefully we will get the payment by June end,” Sinha said. The company has reduced its debt-to-equity ratio from 2.19 to 1.99 in FY20 and aims to reduce it to below 1.5 in FY21. “We will restructure our renewable energy business this year; we have not yet finalised the structure for it. But we will definitely look at de-consolidation, so that Rs 11,000 crore of debt on renewable assets moves out of the company’s balancesheet,” Sinha said.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2Mkaysj
via IFTTT