Western Carriers To Use Rs 165 Crore From IPO Proceeds To Reduce Debt by 75%
Of the rest of the proceeds, Western Carriers will use Rs 150 crore for capex, said CEO Kanishka Sethia.
Western Carriers India Ltd. will use Rs 165 crore from its IPO proceeds to cut its existing debts by up to 75%, according to the company’s director and Chief Executive Officer Kanishka Sethia.
The company raised Rs 492.88 crore from the maiden share sale, including a fresh issue of 2.33 crore shares aggregating to Rs 400 crore and an offer-for-sale of 54 lakh shares aggregating to Rs 92.88 crore.
The Western Carriers IPO was subscribed 30.57 times on the final day of its bidding.
Talking to NDTV Profit, Sethia explained in detail how his company will use the proceeds from its initial public offering, which made a discounted listing at the bourses on Tuesday.
“We will be using about Rs 165 crore for repayment of our debt and loan repayment. That will bring our debt down by about 70–75%. That is going to clean up our balance sheet quite a lot,” he said.
“The rest of the use of proceeds is divided between capex, which is approximately Rs 150 crore, and some general corporate purposes,” Sethia added.
On Tuesday, shares of Western Carriers debuted on the BSE at a discount of 1.16% at Rs 170. On the NSE, it listed at Rs 170.98 per share, indicating a discount of 0.59%. The shares extended their losses to close on the BSE at Rs 159.45, and at Rs 159.50 on the NSE.
However, Sethia said that the company was well-positioned in its space.
“As our economy is rapidly expanding, logistics has a huge role to play in ensuring that we are able to realise the vision of growth for our country,” he said.
The top executive was also hopeful of increasing the margins of the company from the current 9%.
“We have built up a credible story of growing our profitability by increasing our efficiency, sweating our supply chains more and getting rid of redundancies as much as we could,” he said.
Sethia further noted that the company's container volumes are growing at almost 10–12%.
“As the volumes go up, it makes us more efficient and profitable. We are working towards it,” he said.
Western Carriers is also trying to increase its cashflows so that it can partake in the opportunities that the growing Indian economy presents, Sethi added.
“The more the cashflows that we can mop up, the more the money we have for reploughing into our business. We see our industry as a whole entering into a sunshine phase,” he said.
Western Carriers India Ltd. is a multi-modal, rail-focused, 4PL asset-light logistics company that offers fully customisable, multi-modal logistics solutions.
