KKR to acquire GIP's highway business

Global investment company KKR & Co Inc is set to acquire Global Infrastructure Partners' (GIP's) complete portfolio in Highway Concessions One (HC1) and seven highway assets with an entire length of 478 km. HC1 is a road platform in India that leads the road portfolio of GIP. These projects spread across seven states, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. It is KKR’s first investment in the transport sector in Asia. Through this acquisition, KKR intends to develop and strengthen the National Highway network of India, which serves nearly 40% of total traffic. However, it estimates only 2% of the country's road network. KKR told the media that it made its investment from the KKR Asia Pacific Infrastructure Fund. It is the third investment of KKR in India from the fund and the first in the transport sector of Asia. New infrastructure investments in India consists of Virescent Infrastructure, a renewable energy firm, and India Grid Trust (IndiGrid), an infrastructure investment trust. EY and Deloitte served as advisors, while AZB & Partners and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett served as legal advisors to KKR. Wipro sold its stake worth nearly $76.24 million in hybrid IT services provider Ensono Holdings to KKR. In March 2018, Wipro acquired a 10.2% stake in an Illinois-headquartered company, an investment of $55 million. When Wipro sold its hosted data centre business to Ensono for a consideration of $405 million, it signed a long-term cooperation agreement with the company. As part of the agreement, Wipro gave 900 employees to Ensono and sold eight data centres to the company. Image Source Also read: NHAI to increase size of InvIT to Rs 15,000 crore Also read: Cube Highways to sell road assets through InvIT