The Hindu Business Line : Quipo Infrastructure to buy equipment worth Rs 100 cr

Adding to the numbers
The six new yards are to come up at Guwahati, Nagpur, Bhubhaneshwar, Kolkata, Chennai and Patna, Mr Kanoria said. Each yard would cost around Rs 3 crore.

Chennai , Aug. 3

Quipo Infrastructure plans to buy equipment worth Rs 100 crore.

Quipo Infrastructure Equipment Ltd, a company engaged in renting out construction equipment, intends to put up six more equipment yards across the country, to add to the nine it has today.

These six new yards will be populated with construction machines worth about Rs 100 crore, the Chairman and Managing Director of Quipo, Mr Sunil Kanoria, told Business Line on Thursday. At present, Quipo's stock of equipment is worth Rs 250 crore, he said.

Quipo is an associate company of Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd, an NBFC that specialises in infrastructure funding. Srei has a 21 per cent stake in the company. Other shareholders include multinational lending agencies such as IFC, Washington and FMO of The Netherlands. Ingersoll Rand has a 3 per cent stake in the company.

The six new yards are to come up at Guwahati, Nagpur, Bhubhaneshwar, Kolkata, Chennai and Patna, Mr Kanoria said. Each yard would cost around Rs 3 crore.

Quipo today has over a thousand units of equipment. The company rents out the equipment, which may be a tipper of a bulldozer, along with the operator. It has a pool of 1,300 trained operators.

In the year ending March 2006, the company earned rental income of Rs 95 crore.

Equity infusion

To fund the setting up of new yards as well as purchase of equipment, Quipo is looking at equity infusion. Mr Kanoria said a number of private equity investors had shown interest in putting in equity money. A decision is to be taken by the end of this year.

A subsidiary of Quipo Infrastructure, Quipo Telecom Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, puts up towers for cellular operators and lets them use the towers for a fee. This way, one tower could be shared by more than one operator, which results in lower cost.

Quipo Telecom today has around 250 such towers and intends to add another 300. Each tower costs around Rs 25 lakh.

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