Lavasa Corporation - HCC defers plans to launch IPO

PUNE: Construction major HCC's group company Lavasa Corporation, which is developing an ambitious Rs 30,000-crore hill city project here, has deferred its plan to launch an initial public offer due to global economic slowdown. Investors waiting to buy stocks of Lavasa will need to wait for some more time.

"The IPO would be launched when the market will be alright and the global economy starts looking up," Lavasa Corporation Chairman Ajit Gulabchand, who is also the chairman-cum-managing director of HCC, told PTI.

The company had plans to come up with a public offer by October 2010. The size of the public offer was slated to be at 10 per cent of the project valuation at the time of IPO.

The valuation of the project - termed as the country's first planned hill city project post-Independence-- could go up to Rs 40,000 crore by 2020, Gulabchand said.

The project completion has been advanced to 2015 from earlier plan of 2020, Gulabchand said on the sidelines of the launch of Fortune Select Dasve at Lavasa.

Real estate in Lavasa would alone generate revenue to the tune of Rs 1,47,000 crore by 2020 in addition to other revenues, he said adding, the company's peak investment at present is Rs 2,000 crore and the projects funding is done through equity and debt.

"The debt-equity ratio is 2:1. We have already invested Rs 1,500 crore in the project," he said.
Lavasa project website: http://www.lavasa.com/
Source: Economictimes.com