ONGC's Rs 126 cr order spread over 3 years: Sical

Excerpts of CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Karthik Menon:

Q: Could you start by giving us your Q4, FY07 numbers?

A: For year-ended March 31, Sical Logistics has posted a topline of about Rs 601 crore and an EBITDA of about Rs 61 crore.

Q: You have recently bagged an order from ONGC. Where does your order book stands as of today and over how long is it executable?

A: The ONGC order, which we bagged, is worth Rs 125-130 crore and will be executed over the next three years. It works out to about Rs 40 crore a year. We have an order book, or new business initiatives, of about Rs 160 crore, which are in the pipeline. These are in our core business of bulk logistics and transportation. All these are contracts that are yet to fructify. Over the next quarter or so, these will get converted into contracts.

Q: What is the total amount of money that you intend to raise for your current capex?

A: From a fund raising perspective, we started our initiative, in April 2006, to put together USD 125 million, which was needed to grow the business. From this, USD 75 million was through convertible bonds, for which we partnered with Deutsche Bank. We raised USD 26 million through an equity fund raising with IDFC Private Equity.

At present, we are doing a preferential allotment, of USD 24-25 million, to Macquarie and Credit Suisse. With this, the USD 125 million fund raising exercise is now complete.

Other than that, we have had internal accruals as well as asset disinvestments of the non-logistics business, for about Rs 89 crore. As of today, we have a cash and debt position of about Rs 350 crore and Rs 530 crore, respectively.

This completely services our need for investing in our joint venture with the Board of Singapore, our iron ore terminal, as well as the MIHAN rail and road terminals.

Q: You are looking to set up a wholly owned subsidiary for the infrastructure and asset-related side. How much of an investment would that entail and how significant, as a contribution of revenue, do you expect it to be?

A: The amount of investment that is going into infrastructure is much larger than what's going into services.