The Hindu Business Line : Foray into global corporate leasing

SREI International Finance Ltd (Srei), the infrastructure project finance company, has formed a 100 per cent subsidiary outfit in Germany - International Infrastructure Services GmbH (IIS) - to venture into global corporate leasing business.

Talking to Business Line here on Friday after the Srei board met to take on record the unaudited financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2004, the Managing Director, Mr Hemant Kanoria said the company was registered in Cologne, and Srei would invest one million euro to begin operations. He said the company had been seeking an international presence for about six months. And it finally settled for Germany primarily because of the close business relationship with DEG, an institution owned by the German Government which has a stake in Srei.

The other international stakeholders in Srei are International Finance Corporation, Washington, and FMO, owned by the Netherlands Government.

Mr Kanoria said the Belgian government, through Belgium Investment Overseas (BIO), had also participated in the mezzanine capital of the company. He said Srei's current business model was designed to participate comfortably in international lease-financing transactions. He also said the company had been scouting Europe, particularly East Europe, UK, Germany and the CIS countries, for setting up an overseas outfit.

Asked if the German stakeholder would participate in this new outfit in Cologne, Mr Kanoria said there was no such move now. IIS GmbH is expected to begin operations by end-2004.

Mr Kanoria said the company also had plans to spread operations to the UK and the CIS countries at a later stage.

Commenting on the 31- per cent surge in the company's net profit for the quarter ended June 30, 2004, Mr Kanoria said this was because of the company being successfully positioned in the niche areas of infrastructure asset creation and wealth management services.

The PAT jumped to Rs 3.59 crore from Rs 2.76 crore for the corresponding quarter of last financial year.