Indiabulls to enter infra financing

MUMBAI: To capitalise on the growing emphasise on infrastructure projects and the growing need for financing of such projects, Indiabulls Financial Services Ltd (IBFSL ) in venturing into the infrastructure and construction equipment financing space. IBFSL is targeting to disburse about Rs 8,000 crore in the next one year. The company is also ramping up its commercial vehicle finance and plans to launch auto loans products next month.

IBFSL is venturing into these two financing businesses through a wholly owned subsidiary Indiabulls Infrastructure Credit Ltd (IICL). Speaking to TOI, Gagan Banga, CEO, IBFSL said that the plan is to infuse capital worth about Rs 1,000 crore into IICL and then scale up its operations.

IICL already has an nonbanking finance company (NBFC) license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Going forward this company will be converted into an infrastructure NBFC, a separate kind of NBFC which will finance only infrastructure projects. In the last budget, to address the specific financing needs of infrastructure companies and the companies which finance such projects, the government created infrastructure NBFCs.

IBFSL has already made some senior level hirings to ramp up IICL's business. Recently it recruited Manavjeet Singh, who was earlier with HDFC Bank, heading the bank's retail asset business which included car loans, commercial transportation, healthcare finance and branch sales. The company has also hired Mudit Gupta from Srei Infrastructure's equipment finance division. While in the infrastructure financing business IDFC is the biggest player, in the construction equipment financing segment, Srei is the leading player.