The National Highways Infra Trust (NHIT), the infrastructure investment trust of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), has raised more than ₹16,000 crore for 889 kilometres of national highway through its ‘InvIT round 3’ This is the largest-ever monetisations by NHAI and one of the largest transactions in the history of Indian roads. The letter of acceptance (LOA) was issued in February, NHAI said.
In the third round of monetisation, NHIT has raised unit capital of around ₹7,272 crore from marquee domestic and international investors, and debt of around ₹9,000 crore from Indian lenders to fund the acquisition of national highway stretches at a base concession fee of around ₹15,625 crore and additional concessional fees of ₹75 crore. Investors subscribed to the units through a book-build process at a cut off price of ₹124.14 a unit, a premium over the current NAV of Rs.122.86 a unit.
The units drew demand from both existing and new investors, including foreign pension funds such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, which are existing unitholders and subscribed to the upper limit of 25% each. Other investors included domestic pension and provident funds such as IOCL Employee’s PF, L&T Staff PF, Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Karamchari Pension Fund and SBI Pension; insurance companies such as Tata AIG, SBI Life and HDFC Life; mutual funds such as SBI and Nippon India; banks and a few others. NHAI also subscribed to its share of 15% of the units at the same price.
The total realised value from all three rounds stands at ₹26,125 crore and comprises a diversified portfolio of 15 operating toll roads with an aggregate length of about 1,525 km, spread across Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Concession periods range from 20 to 30 years.
Anurag Jain, secretary at the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, said, “NHIT is a successful example of public-private partnership (PPP), in which it has played a very important role in supporting the National Monetisation Pipeline. While doing that, NHIT has established itself as a leading player in the InvIT space, playing a critical role in channelising financial capital into the further development of the Indian roads sector."
NHIT was set up in November 2021 to support the government’s National Monetisation Pipeline. It raised around Rs.12,000 crore through the first two rounds of monetisation to acquire eight operating road assets with an aggregate length of 636 km from NHAI. Units of NHIT were issued at ₹101 each in November 2021 and were listed on both BSE and NSE.