NEW DELHI, July 13:  Diversified enterprise FIL Industries Pvt Ltd is looking to add four to five projects to its ropeway business and plans to raise Rs 200 crore on equity to expand the vertical, according to its Executive Director Syed Junaid Altaf.

  The company, which has invested about Rs 750 crore on three ropeway projects — Skyview by Empyrean at Patnitop, Dehradun-Mussoorie and Yamunotri-Kharsali — plans to bundle all of its current and future projects in a single SPV where the company holds ownership, and raise capital through infra fund, PE or a strategic partner route, Altaf told PTI in an interview.

When all the first three projects are operational, he said the company is looking at “carrying anywhere between 3.5 million to 4.5 million passengers by 2030-31”. While the Patnitop project is already operational, Dehradun-Mussoorie is expected to start by 2026 and Yamunotri-Kharsali in 2028.

“We are now looking at four to five active projects and we are now also looking to raise capital. We are looking to bundle all of them in a single SPV where we hold ownership, and then that SPV holds ownership in the projects,” he said when asked about the company’s plans for the ropeway business.

On the amount of capital the company is looking to raise, he said,”We are looking to raise at least Rs 200 crore on equity so that it sees us through at least another three projects.”

Altaf further said,”We will go either an infra fund route, or a PE (private equity) route or a strategic partner route.”

This, he said, is a way to “monetise and gain access to capital to scale this business”.

On the size of the total future projects that FIL is looking at, he said,”For us, (it is) anywhere between Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,200 crore.”

Being “specialists in pure PPP (public private partnership)” with revenue sharing with the government, he said in future too FIL would look for such projects which is of similar nature “where as much as the revenue share is with the government, pricing on the ropeway has to be determined by us” and the company is allowed to build tourism infrastructure, such as food and beverages and entertainment area, around the ropeway.

FIL Industries, which has presence in crop nutrition, protection, stone fruit nursery, fruit juice concentrate, post harvest management, and sustainable mobility and infrastructure, had clocked an overall top line of Rs 430 crore with the nascent ropeway business about 5 per cent of total revenue.

“But we anticipate the ropeway business by FY30 — five years from today, when we have two more projects — at least to be anywhere between 20 to 25 per cent (of total revenue),” Altaf said. (PTI)