By Dominick Rodrigues
Mumbai : RailTel Corporation Of India Limited (“RailTel”) — one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country – is launching its IPO of 87,153,369 equity shares priced at between Rs 93 to Rs 94 per share from February 16 to February 18 this year.
RailTel is a Mini Ratna (Category-I) Central Public Sector Enterprise — wholly-owned by the Government of India and under administrative control of Ministry of Railways — owning a Pan-India, 59,098 route kilometers optical fiber cable network and exclusive Right of Way (ROW) along Railway track – across several towns & cities and rural areas of the country.
The objects of the Offer are to carry out the disinvestment of 87,153,369 Equity Shares held by the Selling Shareholder; and to achieve the benefits of listing the Equity Shares on the Stock Exchanges.
Puneet Chawla, Chairman & Managing Director, RailTel Corporation of India Limited, said while RailTel crossed a Rs 1,000 crores turnover in 2017, it witnessed last year a 12.4% growth in revenue and 34% in PAT with expected 20% growth in its services this year. “India has the world’s lowest ‘fixed broadband’ per 100 people, but a huge growth potential. The new Data Protection policy emphasizes exponential growth in the Data Centers field and we are partnering with the Railways in digitalization,” he said.
Describing RailTel’s coverage of 6,000 railway stations including 256 major stations and 14,000 rail coaches in the country, he said “We created one of the largest such public networks in the world and today are the ‘largest neutral telecom provider’. Besides being key partner for the Railways in digital transformation with 3.5 lakh customers in India, We have 1085 towers and our own “Rail Cloud” for cloud computing, turnkey ICT projects.”
“We have entered the field of consultancy and railway signaling projects, and are emerging into creation of the ‘pathbreaking’ Train Collision Avoidance System for the Railways Hi-Speed Mobile Corridor,” he said, adding “Our volumes are low but our profits are the highest among competitors. Our current orderbook stands at Rs 4,000 crores and rising, where Covid-19 had a positive impact on our revenue growth by 2.55 times (broadband subscribers) through new opportunities like hospital telecom services and education sector comprising connecting schools.”
Highlighting RailTel’s forward strategy, he said “Our uniqueness as ‘Right of Way’ and reach makes us a key value proposition to deliver on demand while spreading out to other sectors like education and health, besides railway signaling (the focus area.) We are into developing India’s Hi-Speed Corridor, besides working beyond India’s borders in Kenya, Bangladesh and Mauritius.”
“The Prime Minister announced connecting telecom to 6 lakh villages in the next 1,000 days – which is a big opportunity and we have asked for ‘’spectrum” through the Railways (approved by TRAI) while upgrading our network to meet the challenges of such services. Being registered as an aggregator for PDOA, this is a big opportunity in building the world’s largest public WiFi network,” he added.
RailTel offers a diversified portfolio of ICT services and solutions including MPLS-VPN, leased lines services, TPaaS, e-Office services and data center services, large network hardware system integration, software and digital services to enterprises, public sector banks, defense organisations and educational institutions; operated through data centers located in Gurugram, Haryana, Secunderabad and Telangana to host and collocate critical applications for customers including the Indian Railways.
RailTel is also appointed by the Ministry of Railways for implementation of the Hospital Management Information System and has been also allotted the e-Office Project Phase 3 project. ICICI Securities Limited, IDBI Capital Markets & Securities Limited and SBI Capital Markets Limited are appointed as the BRLMs to the Offer.
