Jaypee Group will build more hydropower plants & make it big in realty: Manoj Gaur, exe. chairman.

The Jaiprakash Group, which is selling its entire hydropower portfolio to Anil Ambani's Reliance Power, is determined to bounce back in the sector by building up to 5,000 MW of new capacity, and also aims to rise to the top league of the real estate business by building seven smart cities and completing 300 towers in about two years.Jaiprakash Associates' executive chairman Manoj Gaur said that more deals were in the offing, in addition to the Rs. 12,300-crore deal with Reliance Power, which will reduce the debt, currently Rs. 65,000 crore, to a manageable level.

'With our hydro power projects being valued at Rs 12,300 crore, we will be able to bring down our debt to around Rs. 52,000 crore. We will do a couple of more transactions in next six months and we should have debt of Rs. 37,000 to Rs. 40,000 crore at group level by March 2015. I am sure that the economy would have picked up by then and it should be a reasonable debt level for the group to service easily,' Gaur told ET in an interview. He said the company valued its hydropower assets, but the family took the emotionally difficult decision 'with a detached heart' to ensure that it would service its debt and maintain goodwill. Responding issues about valuation of the assets by the Adani Group and JSW, which were also negotiating, Gaur said: 'Till 2013, balance sheet of Jaiprakash Power Venture reflects only the operational results of these three projects and the profitability has been best among all power companies of India.So, valuation is always and shall continue to be decided by merit of asset and not only based on computation of return of equity. Other contenders, JSW and Adani, have own perceptions based on their computations, but I can only say that my father, Reliance, Adani and Jindal are entrepreneurs. When they started their businesses, they were not thinking of return on equity. And then they made success out of that.'


ET