India’s biggest investment bank turns bullish on Sri Lanka

Giving a sudden boost to Sri Lanka’s mega-infrastructure development landscape, India’s topmost investment bank and the only Indian bank featured in Fortune Global 500, SBI Capital Markets says it is bullish on Sri Lanka’s post-war infrastructure.

SBI Capital Markets India, President and Chief Operating Officer V.G. Kannan shows SBI’s mega scale project profile to Industry and Commerce Minister Rishad Bathiudeen when the former paid a courtesy call on the latter

“We are a tried and tested global player in infrastructure development. We usually aim at mega scale projects above $ 25 million. We believe that PPP collaborations in large scale infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka can be a significant win-win for both. We are not investing by ourselves but have the capacity to bring in global investors,” revealed V.G. Kannan, President and Chief Operating Officer of SBI Capital Markets (SBICM), India yesterday.

Kannan, who is on a two day tour to Colombo with an SBI fact finding mission, was addressing Rishad Bathiudeen, Minister of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka during his meeting with Bathiudeen at the Ministry premises.

SBICM is a 100% owned entity of the State Bank of India (SBI), the largest commercial bank in India. The government of India owns 61% of SBI. SBICM, a Thompson Reuters ‘Bank of the Year’ award winner, specialises in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) as well as mega scale project financing. Among SBICM’s portfolio of 165 global clients are Standard Chartered, HSBC (InvestDirect), FranklinCovey, Bloomberg/UTV, Vodafone, LandRover, IndianOil, Le Meridien, NIIT, and Aditya Birla.

SBICM is also the sole Indian member of M&A International Inc, an integrated global alliance of industry-leading advisory and finance firms with more than 1,400 global M&As at $ 85 billion over the past five years.

“We believe that PPP collaboration on large scale infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka can be significant win-win for both. As a start, we are planning to host a high level confab with regard to PPP on the infrastructure projects next March in Colombo in association with EuroMoney and Merchant Bank of Sri Lanka (MBSL). We believe that a defined, sector-wise PPP investment framework by Sri Lanka will help the country to garner higher PPP financing as well as increased investor confidence.

“Both Sri Lanka’s North-South and East-West corridors have high investment appeal. We also believe that there is much more scope to engage private sector in Sri Lanka’s large scale infrastructure projects” stated Kannan. He added:  “MBSL is our facilitator here. In 2005, we entered into a strategic alliance with MBSL. An international conference with global information provider such as Euromoney will enhance Sri Lanka’s international investment profile strongly. This will also assist our interest in collaborating with the Government of Sri Lanka on mega scale investment projects on a PPP basis. We usually look at mega scale projects above $ 25 million.”

Responding to Kannan, Minister Bathiudeen said: “We warmly welcome your latest initiatives in Sri Lanka and we too are looking for PPP financing and therefore, we are well committed to facilitate you. In fact, your initiatives here will boost our international profile greatly and help the committed infrastructure development vision of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. We too agree that the private sector should be enlisted in our infrastructure development efforts.”