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Macquarie Is Said to Be Among Parties Interested in IL&FS Assets

GAIL India Ltd. and Solar Energy Corporation of India have also submitted expression of interest to buy the assets. 

Macquarie Is Said to Be Among Parties Interested in IL&FS Assets
Road construction takes place near the IL&FS building, one of India’s leading infrastructure-development and finance companies, in Mumbai, India. (Photographer: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Bloomberg News)

(Bloomberg) -- Macquarie Infrastructure & Real Assets and NTPC Ltd., India’s largest power utility, are among companies interested in buying some of the renewable energy assets of beleaguered shadow financier Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., people familiar with the matter said.

GAIL India Ltd. and Solar Energy Corporation of India have also submitted expression of interest to buy the assets, the people said asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. IL&FS is expecting the sale of wind and solar energy assets to fetch as much as 80 billion rupees ($1.14 billion), one of the people said.

Discussions are at an early stage, and may not result in a deal, the people said.

The asset sales are key to reviving IL&FS, whose defaults sparked fears of a contagion across the financial system in India. The group, which had total debt of $12.6 billion as of March 31, has been defaulting on loans and bonds since August.

Sharad Goel, spokesman for IL&FS, and a representative for Macquarie in Mumbai, declined to comment. A managing director of Solar Energy Corporation and a spokeswomen for NTPC and GAIL didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Arpwood Capital Pvt. and JM Financial Ltd. were appointed to advise IL&FS on the asset sales, an emailed statement from the group showed in November.

--With assistance from Debjit Chakraborty and Anindya Upadhyay.

To contact the reporters on this story: Saloni Shukla in Mumbai at sshukla72@bloomberg.net;Rajesh Kumar Singh in New Delhi at rsingh133@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew Monahan at amonahan@bloomberg.net, Anto Antony

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