Inox Clean Energy Set to File Draft Papers for ₹10,000-Crore IPO by Month-End

Two months ago, Inox Clean Energy was valued at ₹70,000 crore when Adar Poonawalla's family office bought in. It now wants the public market to price it at around ₹1 lakh crore. 

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The renewable energy company is getting ready to submit draft papers to the Securities and Exchange Board of India for a ₹10,000-crore initial public offering, with the filing expected by the end of this month or early October, according to sources. Nuvama, JM Financial and Emirates NBD are the investment banks working on the issue. 

Promoters hold roughly 95% of the company and plan to sell down about 10% through the IPO, one of the people said. Proceeds are earmarked for two things: more acquisitions and paying down debt. 

Who they are 

Inox Clean Energy is the green energy business of the InoxGFL Group and operates as an integrated platform straddling power generation and solar manufacturing. Its subsidiary Inox Neo Energies develops, buys and runs wind, solar and hybrid projects. Another arm, Inox Solar, makes solar modules and cells in both India and the United States. 

The group is led by Vivek Jain, with his son Devansh Jain serving as executive director. It's worth spelling out the family tree here, because the name causes confusion. INOXGFL is not the INOX Group that owns Inox Air Products and the listed cryogenic-equipment maker Inox India. The two were carved apart in a 2021 family settlement: Vivek Jain took the specialty-chemicals and renewables businesses, while his brother Pavan Jain and nephew Siddharth Jain kept industrial gases, cryogenic equipment and the multiplex chain. 

A year of buying 

The company that's now heading to market looks very different from the one that existed a year ago. Over the past twelve months it has announced or completed ten strategic acquisitions in India and overseas, and that spree is what turned it into a large, integrated renewable player. 

The biggest deal was Vena Energy India, bought for ₹6,000 crore from Global Infrastructure Partners, the BlackRock-owned infrastructure investor. Vena brought around 1 GW of operating capacity, another 1.7 GW of solar and wind plus 1.2 GWh of battery storage in advanced construction, and a further 2.7 GW of solar and wind and 1.3 GWh of BESS in the development pipeline. After the purchase, Inox Clean's operating and near-operational portfolio stood at roughly 4 GW, with a pipeline of more than 12 GW of solar and wind and 2.5 GWh of storage. 

The rest of the shopping list is long. Vibrant Energy, previously owned by Macquarie, came with a 1,337 MW renewable portfolio. Around 300 MW of operating solar projects were picked up from SunSource Energy. The company took over the Indian and African businesses of CalPERS-backed SkyPower, and added a 640 MW hybrid portfolio from Evergreen Power. It has also been named the successful bidder for Wind World India's roughly 600 MW generation portfolio. 

Then there's the US leg. Inox Clean acquired Boviet Solar's American manufacturing assets at an enterprise value of about $750 million, which handed it a working 3 GW module plant along with an agreement to acquire a further 3 GW solar-cell facility in the country. 

How it's been paying for all this 

The expansion has been funded through a mix of equity and structured capital rather than debt alone. 

In January, Inox Clean and Inox Solar together raised around ₹3,100 crore from a group of investors that included CalPERS, SUN Group Global, Authum Investments and Akash Bhansali. 

July brought the Poonawalla money: ₹700 crore invested through Rising Sun Holdings at that ₹70,000-crore valuation. Motilal Oswal Group has separately committed ₹1,500 crore via compulsorily convertible debentures, of which ₹1,000 crore has already been put to work on acquisitions and growth.