Suzlon Energy gains 2% on fund raising plans

Suzlon Energy shares gained more than two percent on Monday as the company plans to raise upto USD 400 million by selling 15 of its non-core assets.

With these funds, the world’s fifth largest wind turbine maker will partly retire it's debt pile of nearly Rs 14,600 crore, PTI said quoting a top company official. Earlier, the company was planning to raise USD 100 million.

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The company has already initiated the process to sell stake in its wholly owned Chinese subsidiary Suzlon Energy Tianjin, through which it will realise USD 60 million or Rs 338 crore.

Suzlon is also planning to sell stake in its forging business SE Forge.

"This is a part of Suzlon’s cost-cutting and debt reduction programme," Chief Financial Officer Kirti Vagadia said.

The company, which got a lifeline from its lenders in January with Rs 9,500-crore debt restructuring, has embarked on a plan to reduce debt and interest by selling non-core assets and cut its fixed costs by nearly 20 percent.

As part of this strategy, the Pune-based company has so far laid off 750 jobs in its German subsidiary REpower. The company has a total workforce of around 13,000 across 32 geographies.

At 09:34 hours IST, the stock was quoting at Rs 14.49, up 2.19 percent on Bombay Stock Exchange. Market capitalisation of the company currently stands at Rs 3,030.75 crore.

(With inputs from PTI)