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• Lanco Infratech plans to monetise its road assets and has roped in Ernst & Young, the auditor and consultant, to take the process forward, according to company sources.“There is a proposal to evaluate the options for road assets since they have been classified as non-core.But there’s no timeline set on finding buyers,” a source said.The divestment would be to a strategic investor who would take over the operations. “The model is still being finalised. Feedback suggests that it would be difficult to sell in a single chunk. It might happen in parcels. It all depends on what the investor wants,” the source said.
• Lanco planned to expand its roads business into a major vertical with an asset portfolio worth about `10,000 crore by 2015.However, the source said the management later decidedthat concentrating on core activities such as power generation would be a better bet.Lanco has been developing three road projects — two in Karnataka and one in Uttar Pradesh.
• The Karnataka projects are a 163-km development on NH-4 in Hoskote and NH-48 at Devihalli.While the Hoskote project was estimated to cost about `736 crore, the Devihalli one would cost about Rs612 crore.The Aligarh-Kanpur project in Uttar Pradesh has an outlay of Rs723 crore.All projects were taken up on a build-operate-transfer, or BOT, basis.Lanco has pumped in about Rs1,800 crore into the projects. Of this, about Rs900 crore has been via debt and the rest equity. The projects are still in the development phase and estimates of toll revenues are not available.

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