Lanco weighs joining race for Premier Coal

After its acquisition of Australia’s Griffin Coal Mines for $760 million in December, infrastructure major Lanco Infratech is joining a race for another coal asset in the continent —  Premier Coal — which is expected to cost over $450 million.

According to a senior official of the company, the proposal is
still being evaluated and it would take some more time for the company to decide.

Reliance Power and another Hyderabad-based infrastructure company GVK Power are also said to be in the race for Premier Coal.

Meanwhile, Lanco’s bottomline for the last fiscal, the results of which were announced on Monday, suffered a setback owing to the “elimination factor” as per the Indian accounting standards.

The company has reported a growth of 18% in operating revenues at Rs11,265.2 crore and a 55% growth in profit after tax but before adjustments at Rs862.8 crore for the year ended March 2011.

However, following the elimination as per Accounting Standard 23, the net profit fell to Rs446.1 crore from Rs458.6 crore in the previous year.

As per the Indian Accounting Standards, the companies are required to eliminate the revenue that they earn by providing services to their subsidiary companies.

Accordingly, Lanco Infra has eliminated higher revenue as
EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) and construction was providing services to subsidiary companies that were developing power projects.