Ostro Energy plans $250 million bond issue

Ostro Energy Pvt. Ltd, the renewable energy platform set up by private equity firm Actis, plans to raise $250 million by selling bonds overseas, two people aware of the development said.

The Delhi-based firm is in the process of hiring bankers for the bond sale. Ostro plans to build a 1,000 megawatt (MW) portfolio of renewable energy projects by 2019.

“The money will be used for greenfield projects and reducing debt,” said one of the two people, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. Currently, over 350 MW of Ostro’s wind and solar projects are contracted out and under active construction across Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It has a commissioned capacity of 234 MW of wind projects in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

In February 2015, Actis committed $230 million to create a renewable energy platform in India—Ostro Energy—and hired Ranjit Gupta as chief executive officer. Gupta was the co-founder of renewable energy company Orange Powergen and founding CEO of Indiabulls Power in 2007.

Ostro Energy is the fifth such energy platform that Actis has created, following Globeleq Meso America in Central America, Zuma Energia in Mexico, Aela Energia in Chile and Atlantic Renovaveis in Brazil.

“The Ostro platform of Actis has a debt of around Rs1,700-1,800 crore. Through a bond issuance they are looking at replacing part of the rupee debt with lower cost dollar debt. They have a significant capacity that will be coming online in the next quarter, which will improve their cash flows and make the platform more attractive to go for a bond issuance,” said the second of the people cited earlier.

Sanjiv Aggarwal, partner, energy, at Actis declined to comment, while a mail sent to Ostro CEO Gupta did not elicit any response.