According to two people with knowledge of the situation, Sekura, an infrastructure platform owned by the Edelweiss Infrastructure Yield fund, has opened exclusive negotiations to purchase a portfolio of 11 HAM road projects from Ashoka Concessions, a division of Ashoka Buildcon, for approximately $670 million.
The Ashoka roads portfolio has attracted attention from several bidders, including KKR, Sekura, Cube Highways, and Shrem InvIT, according to an earlier story from ET on April 23.According to him, the portfolio is anticipated to have an enterprise value of about 5,500 crore and an equity value of up to 1,300 crore. Ashoka Buildcon is receiving sale process advice from EY.
Seven of the portfolio’s eleven roads are now in use, while four more are being built. In each of these ventures, Ashoka is the only investor. The states of Punjab, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, and Gujarat are among those where these projects are spread out.
Kharar-Ludhiana, Ranastalam-Anandpuram, Vadodara Kim, Khairatunda-Barwa Adda, Belgaum-Khanapur, Tumkur-Shivamogga -I, and Kandi-Ramsanpalle are among the operating road projects.
According to a corporate investor presentation, six of these roads earned an annuity income of 881 crores as of March 31. The four active projects are Basawantpur-Singnodi, Tumkur-Shivamogga II, III, and IV. As of Tuesday press time, emails made to the Ashoka Group and Edelweiss had not received any reply.
Recently, Ashoka’s effort to sell five toll roads to KKR to monetize them failed. Five toll roads housed under Ashoka Concessions will be sold to KKR for a price of 1,337 crores under the terms of a contract Ashoka signed with KKR in December 2021. The parties mutually canceled the deal.
1,200 crore of the transaction profits were supposed to be utilized to provide SBI Macquarie with a full departure from the Ashoka Concessions platform.
