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Coronavirus impact: Sterling and Wilson Solar promoters facilitate repayment of Rs 500 cr

Sterling and Wilson Solar on Tuesday said that its promoters have facilitated repayment of Rs 500 crore as per the revised schedule of repayment approved by the board.

March 31, 2020 / 10:07 PM IST

Sterling and Wilson Solar on Tuesday said that its promoters have facilitated repayment of Rs 500 crore as per the revised schedule of repayment approved by the board.

"Sterling and Wilson Solar Ltd (SWSL) has received additional Rs 500 crore against loans outstanding from Sterling and Wilson Private Limited (SWPL) and its subsidiary Sterling and Wilson International FZE (SWFZE), which was facilitated by Shapoorji Pallonji and Company Private Ltd and Khurshed Daruvala (Promoters), as per the revised schedule of repayment approved by the Board of Directors of SWSL and communicated to the stock exchanges earlier," a company statement said.

The proceeds have been utilised to reduce our external borrowings by an equivalent amount.

An amount of Rs 1,000 crore had already been repaid from the date of listing till December 31, 2019.

With this (Rs 500 crore), the total repayment stands at Rs 1,500 crore (inclusive of principal and interest).

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Bikesh Ogra – Director and Global CEO said: "When we announced our 9 months' results in February 2020, we were one of the first few companies to have felt the impact of COVID19 pandemic, as the dispatches from China for the Solar PV panels and other equipment related to solar projects had been impacted. Even under those circumstances, we had guided that the last quarter will be our best quarter for FY 20, both in terms of revenue as well as profits, which we are confident of achieving."

"The situation in China has improved substantially, ever since, and the dispatches for all equipment including the Solar PV panels have already commenced for countries currently unaffected by the lockdowns. However, that said, since our operations are spread over more than 25 countries, COVID-19 is likely to affect, delivery of materials and project execution for the countries which continue to go under lockdown. We are monitoring the situation closely to see how to complete the execution of the projects with the least of disruptions."

Sterling and Wilson Solar, a Shapoorji Pallonji Group company, is a global pure-play, end-to-end solar engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) solutions provider, and is the world's largest solar EPC solutions provider in 2018 based on annual installations of utility-scale photovoltaic systems of more than five mega-watt peak, according to IHS Markit.

The company provides EPC services primarily for utility-scale solar power projects with a focus on project design and engineering and manage all aspects of project execution.

PTI
first published: Mar 31, 2020 10:05 pm