National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), India's first infrastructure-focused fund, plans to bring more investors on to its non-bank financing platform.
The NBFC platform, which commenced operations in 2016, has loans of Rs23,000 crore on its books, said a senior executive.
The NIIF debt platform consists of NIIF Infrastructure Finance (NBFC-IDF) and Aseem Infrastructure Finance (NBFC-IFC) and together they have now reached a loan book of about 23,000 crore, said Prakash Rao, executive director and chief investment officer – indirect investments, NIIF.
In the past three years, the loan book of NIIF Infrastructure Finance has grown from Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 16,000 crore. It has been growing at a CAGR of about 45-50% and all of them with no bad
Both NIIF Infrastructure Finance and Aseem have no non-performing assets, added Rao.
The regulatory framework for infra debt funds (IDFs) necessitates lending only to infrastructure projects with at least one year of satisfactory commercial operations.
Aseem Infrastructure Finance got an international investor in less than one and a half years of it being set up and “we are looking at roping in another one or two international investors in the near future”, said Rao, adding that the discussions were ongoing.
In February, Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp bought a 10% stake in Aseem Infrastructure Finance as a strategic investor.
The aim is to balance returns as well as meet the nation’s objectives of infrastructure financing, Rao said.
Source Name:-Economic Times