Srei BNP Paribas confident of 40% growth in disbursals

Infrastructure equipment finance company Srei BNP Paribas is expecting a robust 40 per cent growth in its overall disbursals during the current financial year ended March 2012, up from last year’s disbursement of Rs 10,000 crore, Mr Braj Kishore, Senior Vice-President, Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd, said.

“The general economic slowdown is one aspect but the ground reality with regard to purchase of construction equipment is different. In fact, the demand for construction equipment helps better assess the ground realities. If you factor in the progress we have made in first half ended September, we are confident of achieving the projected growth during the current financial year,” he said.

Mr Braj Kishore told

Business Line today: “Even if the economy grows, say, at 7.5 to 8 per cent, it is big enough for a company like Srei BNP Paribas, which accounts for over 30 per cent market share of the country’s construction equipment finance. We hope to take this market share up to 35 per cent during the current year.”

During the last construction equipment event at Bangalore two years ago, Srei closed funding of Rs 500 crore. “This year we are looking at crossing Rs 600 crore mark in overall business. “Already we have frozen transactions that would facilitate this during the event to be held at Bangalore,” he said.

BANKING FORAY

Referring to the Srei overall business, Mr Braj Kishore said that the group is keen to make banking foray and is awaiting RBI clearances. This is a logical step for a company which is into varied aspects of finance over several decades. Srei sees the large network of common services centres, about 28,000 across six States implemented under the Sahaj project, serving as rural banks.