Era Infra to tie up funds for 2 projects by April

New Delhi-based Era Infra Engineering will tie up funds for its two build-operate-transfer (BOT) road projects worth Rs 1,659 crore by April, chairman & managing director H S Bharana said.

The company had bagged these national highway projects in association with OJSC-Sibmost, a Russian company, on January 13.

The first project, which is on a toll basis, is an 80 km stretch on NH-58 between Muzaffarnagar and Haridwar and is worth Rs 1,007 crore.

The other one involves two stretches of 7.2 kms and 31.83 kms between Haridwar and Dehradun. The Rs 652 crore project is on an annuity basis. The two projects have a concession period of 25 years and 20 years, respectively. Era holds 75% and its partner the rest in the projects.

“We are just beginning the financial closure process and should tie up funds in two months,” Bharana said. He said the debt-equity ratio would be 75:25.

The contracting jobs on both the highways would be executed by Era Infra itself. The company’s order-book stands at about Rs 9,000 crore.

Era Infra has three other highway projects worth Rs 1,300 crore, two on annuity and one on toll. Bharana said, “We will complete two by mid-2010 and the other one by December.” The company hopes to earn about Rs 115 crore annually as annuity once the projects are commissioned.

For the quarter ended December 31, Era Infra’s topline rose to Rs 896.18 crore from Rs 592.18 crore in the same period last fiscal and net profit rose 85% to Rs 57 crore during the reporting quarter. Other than highways, Era Infra does turnkey jobs in power, railways and urban infrastructure.