Infra fund of L&T Finance puts stuck investments on the block; claims ₹1,081 crore on ₹140 crore deployed

L&T Infra Investment Partners (LTIIP), a SEBI-registered Category I infrastructure fund sponsored by L&T Finance, is inviting bids for its remaining investments in renewable power and telecom projects. The fund is in its final liquidation year and is selling units that represent investments it has not been able to exit.

According to a public notice in Financial Express on Thursday, the fund invested ₹139.83 crore of capital in the projects. The “total claim amount” on them is ₹1,081 crore. The notice describes this as “the derived committed value as established under the executed agreements with the underlying investee companies”. That is 7.7 times the money put in.

The sale is being run by Inspirigence Advisors LLP as merchant banker, on behalf of the investment manager, L&T Infra Investment Partners Advisory Pvt Ltd (LTIA). The manager wants to arrange bids for at least 25% of the fund’s 3,15,08,573 outstanding units, from one or more bidders.

The sale terms are:

• bids must be fully in cash
• the units are sold “as is where is, as is what is, whatever there is and no recourse”
• conditional offers can be disqualified
• bidders cannot withdraw once they have bid
• bids must stay valid until July 31, 2027

Expressions of interest are due by 6 pm on November 13, by email. Shortlisted parties will get a preliminary information memorandum after signing a non-disclosure agreement. That memorandum is the first place bidders will see which projects make up the portfolio. The newspaper notice does not name them.

How the sale works

The winning bid will be shown to the fund’s investors. They can then choose whether to sell their units at that price. The buyer deposits the money in an escrow account maintained by LTIA.

This follows SEBI’s framework for closing out AIF schemes that have run past their tenure. To move a scheme with unsold investments into a “dissolution period”, or to distribute the investments in kind, the manager needs consent from investors holding 75% of the fund by value. Before seeking it, the manager has to arrange a bid for at least 25% of the value of the unsold investments, so that investors who disagree can sell out at the bid price. If no such bid comes, the investments are marked at ₹1 for benchmarking.

A fund at the end of its life

LTIIP reached final close on April 25, 2014, with ₹594 crore of commitments from 10 investors, including L&T Finance, according to the fund overview on L&T Finance’s website. It was set up to invest equity, mezzanine and debt in mid-sized infrastructure projects and infrastructure supply-chain companies.

The fund’s term was 10 years, extendable by two, and investors approved an extension to April 24, 2026. It is now in a one-year liquidation period that ends on April 24, 2027. Its stated strategy is to “exit all the present outstanding investments at an optimal value”.

The ₹139.83 crore still invested in the unsold projects equals about 24% of the fund’s original commitments.

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