Piramal Finance invests Rs565 crore in auto component firms RSB Group, Indoshell Mould

Mumbai: Piramal Enterprises Ltd on Tuesday said its subsidiary Piramal Finance Ltd has financed two auto component companies through structured credit transactions worth Rs565 crore.

The investments were made through the Corporate Finance Group (CFG), earlier known as Structured Finance Group, of Piramal Finance, the company said in a statement.

CFG has invested Rs275 crore in RSB Group and Rs290 crore in Indoshell Mould Ltd. Mint reported in March that Indoshell was raising funds from Piramal Finance.

RSB, which has a turnover of Rs1,200 crore, designs and manufactures aggregates and systems for commercial vehicles, cars and construction and farm equipment. The group has 11 manufacturing units across the country.

Indoshell, a two-wheeler focused precision casting supplier, is a key vendor of engine cylinder blocks for Hero Motocorp Ltd, Honda Cars India Ltd, and unit of Japan’s Honda Motor Company Ltd and TVS Motor Company.

The CFG business of Piramal Finance has recently diversified both in terms of sector and offerings. The business is now sector agnostic and offers capital across the risk curve, including senior debt, acquisition finance, promoter finance and private equity exits alongside its previous focus on mezzanine investments.

The business, which started with a focus on infrastructure, including roads and renewables, has funded corporates across cement, entertainment, security management, packaging and other sectors over the last two years. CFG typically targets borrowers facing constraints from traditional channels owing to the current stress in the banking system.

“The auto component space has been on our radar as a focus area for a while now. As is standard practice across our platform, we committed to an in-depth study of the sector over the past few quarters which has culminated in announcing these first two transactions,” said Khushru Jijina, managing director at Piramal Finance Ltd.

The industry has grown at a 15% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the last decade, significantly higher than the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) themselves, Jijina said. Both RSB and Indoshell have long-standing relationships with major OEMs and command a higher wallet share of their respective customer sets.

The CFG business continues to be a prolific investor in the infrastructure space as well.

Earlier in May, Mint reported that Sumant Sinha, founder of the Goldman Sachs-backed green energy producer ReNew Power Ventures Pvt. Ltd, raised around $100 million in structured credit from the CFG business.

Last month, Mint reported that Hyderabad-based renewable energy producer Mytrah Energy India Pvt. Ltd was in advanced talks to raise Rs1,800 crore in structured debt funding from Piramal, while in March, the paper reported that promoters of Krishnapatnam Port Co. Ltd (KPCL) had approached potential investors including Piramal to raise up to Rs1,500 crore in structured debt to buy out the stake held by private equity fund 3i Group Plc.

Piramal Enterprises has $4.9 billion of total funds under management across its various financing businesses including Piramal Fund Management, which provides financing solutions to real estate companies, CFG, and the recently-launched distressed assets investing platform.

The company has recently applied for a housing finance company licence. It also has strategic alliances with top global funds such as APG Asset Management, Bain Capital Credit, CPPIB Credit Investment Inc. and Ivanhoé Cambridge.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.