{"id":1625,"date":"2010-08-18T23:52:27","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T18:22:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/greenworldinvestor.com\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2010-08-18T23:52:27","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T18:22:27","slug":"is-blackstone-gambling-300-million-on-moser-baer-or-indias-growth-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/2010\/08\/18\/is-blackstone-gambling-300-million-on-moser-baer-or-indias-growth-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Blackstone Gambling $300 million on Moser Baer or India&#039;s Growth Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Moser Baer Does not have a Great Track Record<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Blackstone Group has made a $300 million investment in Moser Baer Projects which is a private unlisted subsidiary of Moser Baer.Note Moser Baer is one of the biggest optical disk players in the world and has been constantly churning out losses in the last 2-3 years.It made a huge bet on Solar Energy in 2008 investing haphazardly into all sorts of technology and different parts of the Supply China.Can&#8217;t say the venture proved to much of a success as it continues to bleed red ink.Its was one of the earliest customers of Applied Materials SunFab Amorphous Silicon Thin Film Equipment.<a href=\"http:\/\/greenworldinvestor.com\/2010\/07\/21\/applied-materials-conducts-euthanasia-on-its-long-suffering-amorphous-silicon-thin-film-sunfab-division\/\">That Division has been closed<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/greenworldinvestor.com\/2010\/06\/15\/solar-thin-film-technology-sees-weaker-hands-going-out-of-business\/\">Moser Baer&#8217;s investment has been written off as well.<\/a>It also invested in a small polysilicon producer which also closed down.With the Chinese module makers giving even the top US and European companies a run of the money,Moser Baer has found it difficult to compete on the world stage.It has been given a new lease of life by <a href=\"http:\/\/greenworldinvestor.com\/2010\/05\/30\/solar-energy-in-india-biggest-oppurtunity-in-energy-in-the-21st-century\/\">India&#8217;s ambitious Solar Energy Mission<\/a>.The domestic content requirement will give some breathing space to Moser Baer&#8217;s Solar Division.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Moser Baer\u00a0 started a new Electricity Power Development company with ambitious\u00a0 plans.It is investing in setting up 4000 MW of coal plants and 1000 MW of assorted Hydro and Solar Plants.This company also does consultancy and coal mining according to its website.Now Blackstone has decided to gamble on India&#8217;s Power Deficit Story by investing $300 million for an undisclosed stake in the company.With investment plans of $6.5 billion and parent company sinking under loads of debt,Moser Baer Projects desperately needed equity which has been provided by Blackstone.Its previous track record in Solar and Optical Media does not inspire a lot of confidence.But India&#8217;s 8-9% Growth Rate is like a Rising Tide which will lift all sorts of Boats.Blackstone is perhaps gambling more on that rather than on Moser Baer.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ctl00_bodyplaceholdercontent_dvArtheadline\">\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livemint.com\/2010\/08\/18164540\/Blackstone-to-invest-300-mn-i.html\">Blackstone to invest $300 mn in Moser Baer Projects &#8211; LiveMint<\/a><\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>US private equity firm Blackstone Group has agreed to invest $300  million, or Rs1,350 crore, in unlisted energy firm Moser Baer Projects  Pvt Ltd, the two companies said on Wednesday. Blackstone will pick up a  \u201csignificant minority stake\u201d in Moser Baer Projects, Blackstone India  chief Akhil Gupta told a news conference.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Blackstone had agreed to invest $59 million for a 12.5%  stake in power producer Monnet Power Company Ltd, a wholly owned unit of  India\u2019s Monnet Ispat &amp; Energy.<\/p>\n<p>Moser Baer Projects needs to spend Rs30,000 crore to build 5000 mw power  plants, comprising 4000 mw of thermal, 500 mw of hydel and 500 mw of  solar, by 2016, chief financial officer Sushil Bhagat said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now Blackstone has decided to gamble on India&#8217;s Power Deficit Story by investing $300 million for an undisclosed stake in the company.With investment plans of $6.5 billion and parent company sinking under loads of debt,Moser Baer Projects desperately needed equity which has been provided by Blackstone.Its previous track record in Solar and Optical Media does not inspire a lot of confidence.But India&#8217;s 8-9% Growth Rate is like a Rising Tide which will lift all sorts of Boats.Blackstone is perhaps gambling more on that rather than on Moser Baer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,86,95,45],"tags":[1373,1685,1720,3659],"class_list":["post-1625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-energy-indian-capital-markets","category-hydro-energy","category-solar-renewable-energy-greeninvest","tag-debt","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-molycorp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}