By IANS,
New Delhi : Taking a cue from the other realty companies like Unitech and DLF, Ansal Properties and Infrastructure, part of the Ansal API group, will raise up to Rs.1,500 crore by way of qualified institutional placement (QIP), the company said Monday.
“The board of directors at its meeting held on Monday has decided to seek the approval of shareholders to issue equity shares, to resident and non-resident qualified institutional buyers by way of QIP for raising a sum of up to Rs.1,500 crore,” the company said in a statement.
The company has also decided to seek shareholders’ approval for making public issue or any other issues for raising up to Rs.2,500 crore.
Further, the board has raised the ceiling of the shareholding by foreign institutional investors from 24 percent to 49 percent, the statutory ceiling.
“The raising of funds via the QIP route is a capital raising exercise to provide both business and financial strength to significantly enhance the company’s flexibility,” said Ansal Properties vice-chairman and managing director Pranav Ansal.
“This QIP will also be used to partly fund and support the two large hi-tech integrated townships consisting of hotels, buildings, shopping malls, IT parks, banks, group housing in Lucknow,” Ansal said.
“We are cautiously optimistic about the upturn of the global property markets, but do not expect the turnaround to be happening in the near short run. However, we will continue to focus on our township projects,” he added.
Last week, Parsvnath Developers announced plans to raise Rs.2,500 crore QIP. Earlier this month, Indiabulls Real Estate raised Rs.2,656.5 crore through placement of securities to QIBs.
In May, Unitech, the country’s second largest realty firm, had raised Rs.1,600 crore through the QIP route to fund various projects and pay off part of its Rs.8,400-crore debt.
Another real estate major, Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd, has also said it would raise funds through QIP.
Besides, India’s largest realty firm DLF had earlier this month sold a 9.9 percent stake in the company for about Rs.3,860 crore to raise funds.