Mumbai: Larsen & Toubro Ltd, India’s biggest engineering conglomerate, is seeking to sell a stake in its infrastructure unit to help fund its expansion as economic growth drives demand for roads, ports and bridges.
The group is seeking to offload a minority stake in its infrastructure arm to private equity investors or pension funds for as much as $500 million, the Business Standard reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Larsen & Toubro, which has mandated Morgan Stanley to arrange the sale, is also eyeing to tap sovereign funds such as Singapore’s Temasek, according to the newspaper.
L&T Infrastructure Development Projects is currently handling projects worth 450 billion rupees ($7.9 billion), including 19 road and three port developments. Its largest contract is a Rs16,400 crore metro rail project in southern Hyderabad city, the newspaper said.
Poor infrastructure acts as a bottleneck to India’s economic growth that slowed to 5.3% in the quarter ended March, the weakest pace in nine years.
