International Finance Corp, the private investment arm of the World Bank Group, has proposed to invest up to $75 million in L&T Housing Finance Ltd.
The proposed investment consists of senior financing of up to $75 million in the form of non-convertible debentures, IFC said in a disclosure.
“The proceeds will be used to finance developers of affordable housing as per the criteria specified in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, scheme of the Government of India that aims for “Housing for All” by 2022,” the investment firm said in a disclosure.
L&TH is a housing finance company registered with the National Housing Bank. The company serves the housing and real estate finance segments. As of September 2017, the company held $1.6 billion in assets.
It is a wholly owned subsidiary of L&T Finance Holdings Limited (L&TF), the financial services arm of Larsen and Toubro Limited (L&T). L&TF services about 12 million customers with a reported asset base of over $10 billion.
Headquartered in Mumbai, L&T Housing is currently present in 12 states across India.
Dedicated to on-lending to affordable housing segment, the IFC debt would come with a longer tenure to match the duration of such loans and thereby, ensuring requisite ALM management.
The affordable housing space has witnessed a steady growth as a result of proposed incentives by the government, which include infrastructure status for affordable housing, interest subvention for housing loans and increase in allocation for the government’s Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana housing scheme from Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 23,000 crore.
IFC has been actively investing in the affordable housing space in India. Last week, it announced that it had proposed to invest up to $150 million in PNB Housing Finance Ltd by subscribing to the latter’s five-year masala bonds.
In November last year, Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd had raised Rs 1,300 crore by selling rupee-denominated masala bonds to IFC to fund its business expansion. In October, Fullerton India Credit Co. Ltd, an NBFC owned by Singapore-based Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd, had raised Rs 500 crore ($76 million) from IFC.
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