Malaysian conglomerate Genting has acquired a 36% stake in south India-based independent power producer (IPP) Aban Power Company for a consideration of Rs 47 crore.

Genting Power (India) will acquire 1.78 crore shares of Rs 10 each from Lanco Infratech, and subscribe to a fresh issue of 2.99 lakh shares of Rs 10 each.
After the acquisition by Genting, the company will have a foreign investment of 62%. The other foreign investors in the company include, Third Millennium Investments, Mauritius, which has a 0.3% stake, and Century Investments, Mauritius, which has a 26% stake.

This is the second acquisition for Genting in India. It has already invested in another south-based IPP, Kondapalli Power. It had earlier acquired a stake in a Jindal group IPP in Chattisgarh, but walked out of it over delays.

The Genting Group, which was initially engaged in leisure and hospitality businesses, has now diversified into to non-leisure areas such as plantations, properties, power generation, paper manufacturing, oil & gas exploration and e-commerce.

Aban Power has already inked a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), and the foreign equity for the purpose of return on equity and exchange protection is limited to $14.2m. It is setting up a 120-MW natural gas-based power plant near Kuttalam gas field in Tanjore in Tamil Nadu. Aban Group owns and operates 200 wind mills in south India, offering around 100m units of power annually to the TNEB.

Aban Power has an assured daily supply of 5 lakh cubic metres of natural gas from Kuttalam gas field in the Cauvery basin. The project has already achieved financial closure and is to be commissioned by end '04.
Aban Power is also in the process of developing a natural gas-based, combined cycle power plant at Kuzhiyar in Tamil Nadu to generate 110 MW of power for TNEB.