PFS to raise Rs 4,000 cr from various investors in FY'20

New Delhi, Sep 23 () Energy project financier PFS is planning to raise up to Rs 4,000 crore from various investors including LIC in the ongoing financial year, and has changed its business model to generate higher profits, a top official said. Renewable energy sector has been doing quite well and the company's 60 per cent exposure is in the sector.As of now, the company has zero stress, Pawan Singh, MD and CEO of PTC India Financial Services (PFS) told in an interview.
He said the company will shortly get Rs 580 crore as partial credit from LIC.
"We are in advanced stage of getting Rs 500 crore from PFC, another Rs 200 crore from IREDA and Rs 300 crore from a large public sector bank," Singh said.
PFS has been talking to various developmental, bilateral and multilateral funding institutions like IFC, he said, adding the World Bank financing arm has agreed to fund USD 50 million recently.
IFC is keen on funding especially those projects where there are additional fund requirements and they it fund another USD 100 million, he said.
Likewise, PFS has been talking to various other institutions such as Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and has existing relationship with Netherlands Development Finance Company FMO, German Investment Corporation DEG as well as the Australian Development Bank (ADB).
"We are also talking to PROPARCO, the French DFI (Development Finance Institution). We are also talking to AIIB and so on and hope to get fresh lines of credit from them," Singh said.
Taking all these into account, PFS hopes to arrange financing of up to Rs 4,000 crore, he said further.
Talking about the recent challenges in NBFC sector after unfolding of the IL&FS crisis, he said PFS managed to do better than many other NBFCs because of its institutional nature, which has little bit of quasi government background, besides taking certain preventive measures to avoid the crisis.
Singh said the company has been able to mange its liquidity well. It registered a slump of over 72 per cent in net profit to about Rs 16 crore in the first quarter ended June of this fiscal.
"On one side of course we are not expanding, but we did try to rotate our assets. We have also started cherry-picking and taking only high end products, selling out low-yield products and replacing it with high-yield products. We have made improvements on the operating front," the official said.
PFS is expecting to see further improvements on the operating front from second quarter onwards, he added.
On the liquidity front, there are no challenges as it has already raised Rs 1,000 crore from SBI earlier alongside a partial credit enhancement of up to Rs 400 crore.
"We have re-written our business model, our thermal assets have been brought down from 30 per cent to 13 per cent. By end of this year, I hope to bring it down to 5-6 per cent. We have now tried to position ourself as a sustainable finance company.
"Apart from traditional renewable sources wind and solar, we are doing third party PPAs, we are one of the prime movers in that direction. We also did Namami Gange sewerage treatment water recycling," Singh said.
PFS is now looking to diversifying into areas such as waste-to-energy, urban waste management, electrical vehicle charging, e-mobility.
"These are the areas we are very-very keen to study, we would focus on that," he said. KPM KPM ANU ANU