NHAI to bring first ever InvIT by govt entity soon

New Delhi: National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) will soon set up an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) and a new company will be established for the purpose to act as investment manager for that InvIT.

This InvIT will be the first one to be sponsored by a government entity-NHAI.

The new company which will act as investment manager will have two independent directors and a chairman and for the selection of these professionals, a search committee has already been established, the government said in a statement.

NHAI Chairman Sukhbir Singh Sandhu is the Convenor of the committee. Other members of the committee include Deepak Parekh, Chairman-HDFC, Girish C Chaturvedi, Chairman- ICICI Bank and Sanjay Mitra, Ex-Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.

The new company that will act as investment manager is being set up so that there is professional management of the InvIT for proper mobilization of the resources for monetization of the highways of NHAI.

NHAI had filed its application with the securities market regulator SEBI for the InvIT few weeks ago and got the approval also. 

The NHAI will offer 19 projects under the InvIT. These projects are worth Rs 35,000 crore. In the beginning, few projects will be brought under InvIT which will be ort hrs 5,000-6,000 crore. 

The highways projects that will be included in the InvIT will be EPC projects or projects that are government-funded. 

Private companies like IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd already has an InvIT listed on the stock  exchanges. The IRB InvIT Fund has reported a 10 percent decline in net profit at Rs 99.46 crore for the fourth quarter ended 31 March 2020 as compared to the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. For the entire fiscal 2019-20, IRB InvT Fund reported 13 percent fall in net profit at Rs 172.69 crore as against the previous fiscal.