Sekura in talks to buy Ashoka Buildcon's $670 million road assets

Sekura, an infrastructure platform owned by Edelweiss Infrastructure Yield fund, has begun exclusive talks to acquire a portfolio of 11 hybrid annuity model (HAM) road projects worth approximately $670 million from Ashoka Concessions, a subsidiary of construction company Ashoka Buildcon, said two people aware of the development.

ET first reported on 23 April that several suitors including KKR, Sekura, Cube Highways and Shrem InvIT had shown interest in the Ashoka roads portfolio.

"Sekura has started diligence on these roads," one of the sources said. "Ashoka's portfolio is one of the bigger HAM portfolios available and hence it had evinced interest from multiple players," the person said.


The portfolio is expected to fetch an enterprise value of close to ₹5,500 crore with equity value of up to ₹1,300 crore, he added.

EY is advising Ashoka Buildcon on the sale process.

Of the portfolio of 11 roads, seven projects are operational and four are under construction. Ashoka holds 100% stake in all these projects. These projects are spread across the states of Punjab, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana and Gujarat.

The operational road projects include Kharar-Ludhiana, Ranastalam-Anandpuram, Vadodara Kim, Khairatunda-Barwa Adda, Belgaum-Khanapur, Tumkur-Shivamogga -I, Kandi-Ramsanpalle.

As on March 31, six of these roads collectively generated annuity revenue of ₹881 crore, as per an investor presentation of the company.

The four under construction projects include Tumkur-Shivamogga II, III and IV, and Basawantpur-Singnodi.

Mails sent to Ashoka group and Edelweiss did not elicit any responses till the press time Tuesday.

Ashoka's attempt at monetisation of five toll roads by sale to KKR had fell through recently.

In December 2021, Ashoka had entered into an agreement to sell five toll roads housed under Ashoka Concessions to KKR for a consideration of ₹1,337 crore. The transaction was mutually terminated by the two parties.

Of the sale proceeds, ₹1,200 crore was planned to be used to provide a complete exit to SBI Macquarie from the Ashoka Concessions platform.