GMR India
GMR India has identified roads business as non-core. Credit: Karsten Würth (@karsten.wuerth) on Unsplash.

India-based infrastructure company GMR Group is planning to sell its interests in four road projects by the end of this year to cut its debt.

Following the sale, the firm plans to focus on expanding its existing airports segment by winning new projects, reported The Economic Times.

Currently, GMR owns and operates international airports in Delhi and Hyderabad in Indian, alongside Cebu in the Philippines.

GMR Infrastructure has a consolidated debt of more than $3bn at the end of March, and $1.6bn of that is at the corporate level.

GMR currently operates six highway projects and the four projects that have been put up for sale are the Hyderabad-Vijayawada Expressway, Ambala-Chandigarh Expressway, Pochannpalli Expressway, and the Chennai Outer Ring Road.

Hyderabad-Vijayawada Expressway and Ambala-Chandigarh Expressway are toll projects, while the others work based on an annuity concept.

Two projects based on annuity have short-term left in the contract, while the toll projects have decent growth in traffic.

GMR has invested a total of $728m in these four projects.

The company is also looking to monetise some industrial land holdings in Kakinada and Krishnagiri. Though the firm has identified its roads business as non-core, it is not completely exiting the segment.

GMR Infrastructure executive director Saurabh Chawla was quoted by The Economic Times as saying:  “We have kept our options open but for fresh forays we will be far more cautious.”