Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Limited (‘RIIHL’), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd, has agreed to pick up a controlling stake of 88% in Ahmedabad-based renewable energy services firm Kanoda Energy Systems Pvt. Ltd for ₹ 75 crore (about $10.7 million), in an all-cash deal.
According to a stock-exchange filing by RIL, the said investment upon completion will translate into 88% equity stake in KESL on a fully diluted basis. The total investment is likely to be completed by March 2020.
The acquisition will assist RIIHL’s initiatives to use Kanoda’s renewable energy sources.
Founded in 2009, by Dr. Kinjal Jani, Kanoda is a technology and innovation-driven renewable energy solution provider company, which offers services in solar advisory, product design and technology validation, and recently, it forayed into engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and operation and maintenance (O&M) of solar photovoltaic systems.
Interestingly, Kanoda Energy was a 2004 incubation project by Research Scholars at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA. with the necessary capital infusion via Tipsons Group, the company then started designing and developing solar photovoltaic plants
The company had a turnover of ₹ 10.54 crore, ₹ 1.63 crore and Nil and Net Profit (Loss) of ₹ 81.38 lakhs, ₹ 16.54 lakhs and ₹ (0.51) lakhs in FY 2018, FY 2017 and FY 2016 respectively.
This acquisition of Kanoda comes only a month after RIIHL has picked up a controlling stake in New Emerging World of Journalism (NEWJ), a Mumbai-based digital media startup, with an initial investment of over ₹ 1 crore.
Last week, Reliance Industries has also acquired 5.56% equity stake in VAKT Holdings Limited, a London-based technology startup, for $5 million (around ₹ 35 crore). VAKT uses Blockchain technology for oil & energy trading. And, Reliance has interests in the downstream oil business, with its arm Reliance Petroleum as one of the leading petroleum companies in the world.
Major Renewable Energy Acitivies 2018
This month, Jaipur headquartered solar power developer and EPC player, Rays Power Infra, had raised ₹ 200 crore from DMI Finance, in this month only.
In October, Azure Power, which is India’s largest independent solar power producers, had raised around $185 million primary capital from Canada-based Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ).
In June, Gurgaon-based ZunRoof, a rooftop focused solar startup, had raised ₹ 1.66 crore from i3N (led by Pradeep Tharakan, Sr. Energy Specialist at ADB and Vismay Sharma, MD, L’Oreal, UK & Ireland), Paipal Ventures’ Ajith Pai, Gaurav Gupta, Asia Director, Dalbergr and a bunch of IIT Kharagpur alumni based in US.
In the same month, Hyderabad-based solar energy solution startup Fourth Partner Energy raised $70 million in Series B funding from The Rise Fund, a global impact investment fund managed by TPG Growth.
In April, Gurgaon headquartered clean energy company ReNew Power acquired of Ostro Energy for $1.5 billion to create India’s largest clean energy firm by installed capacity. The acquisition becomes biggest ever deal in the Indian renewable energy sector to date.
[Top Image – Dr. Kinjal Jani, Founder & MD Kanoda Energy]
Source: Equity Bulls
