RGIA capacity to be increased to 34 mm passengers per annum
GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL), a subsidiary of GMR Airports Limited, and a step down subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure Limited (GMR Group) announced that it has successfully priced an offering of $300 million bond in the international bond market. GHIAL entered into a purchase agreement to issue and allot $300 million 4.75% senior secured notes of 5 year tenure (the “Notes”) on Tuesday.
The proceeds from the ‘Notes’ will be used towards the capital expenditure with respect to the master plan (expansion) of the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Hyderabad, increasing the capacity of the airport to 34 million passengers per annum, informed an official spokesperson on Wednesday.
“It reinforces our ability to raise funds from international bond markets and reflects our continued effort to create value for our investors and raise capital for growth. The successful pricing of the offering underscores investors’ confidence in GMR Group and credit strength of GHIAL,” said corporate chairman Grandhi Kiran Kumar. GHIAL is promoted by the GMR Group (63%) in partnership with Airports Authority of India (13%), the Government of Telangana (13%) and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) Group (11%). The company was incorporated to design, finance, build, operate and maintain a greenfield airport at Shamshabad – RGIA.
It was commissioned in 31 months and inaugurated on March 14, 2008, with an initial capacity of 12 million passengers per annum (MPPA) and 150,000 tons of cargo handling capacity per annum. The project has the flexibility to increase capacity and is currently being expanded to accommodate over 34 MPPA, said a press release.
GMR Group’s Airport portfolio has around 172 million passenger capacity in operation and under development, comprising of India’s busiest Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, Mactan Cebu International Airport in partnership with Megawide in Philippines, besides RGIA.
Greenfield projects under development includes Airport at Mopa in Goa and Airport at Heraklion, Crete, Greece in partnership with GEK Terna. The GMR-Megawide consortium has also won the Clark International Airport’s EPC project, the second project in Philippines, received Letter of Intent for development and operations of Nagpur Airport on PPP basis and development and operation of greenfield airport at Bhogapuram in Andhra Pradesh, the release added.
