GMR Infrastructure shares rallied sharply today and hit a 52-week high at Rs 19.05, after the company significantly reduced its gross debt.
Strong profits made by the airport sector helped last year. GMR Infrastructure posted a net profit of Rs 9 crore in the financial year ended March 2017, as against net loss of Rs 2664 crore in the preceding year. EBITDA saw a 12% increase to Rs 3497 crore in the year to March 2017, from Rs 3114 crore a year earlier, thanks to robust improvement in performance of airports and energy verticals.
The infrastructure company announced today that its gross debt came down substantially to Rs 19,856 crore, falling nearly 50% from Rs 37,480 crore.
The company's net debt to EBITDA for fiscal 2017 improved to 4.3 from 10.2% in financial year 2016.
In the January - March 2017 quarter, GMR Infrastructure posted standalone net loss of Rs 2478.7 crore, as compared to Rs 1787 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. The company’s standalone total revenue declined to Rs 272.47 crore compared to Rs 395.25 crore in the year-ago period.
The performance of the airport sector was so impressive in fiscal 2016-17 that both Delhi and Hyderabad Airports have declared their first dividends. Traffic in GRM Airports in Delhi and Hyderabad witnessed traffic growth of 19% and 22% last year.
During the year, GMR Airports Limited won the Mopa Greenfield Airport project in North Goa in a competitive bid. The company has signed the concession agreement for the airport project. It will be on Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) model for a period of 40 years and extendable further for a 20-year period.
By raising around $522.6 million through issue of 10-year 6.125% bonds in the international market, the company has significantly reduced its dependence on bank debt. GMR utilized the proceeds of the bond issue to refinance its outstanding rupee debt and external commercials borrowings.
Another positive for the company emerged last year, when the International Arbitration Tribunal awarded a compensation of $270 million to the company for the wrongful termination of the Maldives Airport Concession.
The group's energy business GMR Energy divested a 74% stake in Maru project and 49% stake in Aravali project to Adani Transmission LImited for a consideration of Rs 100 crore. If verdicts on various appeals before the APTEL turn out to be in favour of GMR, then the realizable value of the stake sale could be somewhere around Rs 220 crore.
GMR Infrastructure shares zoomed to Rs 19 on BSE this afternoon. At present, the stock is at Rs 17.55, up 17.4% from its previous close. On the National Stock Exchange, where it touched a 52-week high of Rs 19.05, the stock is now up 16.8% at Rs 17.50.
On BSE, the GMR Infrastructure counter has clocked a volume of nearly 22.8 million shares so far in the session, around 14 times the average daily volume of around 1.6 million shares. On the National Stock Exchange, around 254.8 million shares have changed hands so far at the GMR Infrastructure counter today.
