WindForce to acquire waste management project, start solar plant in Senegal
WindForce PLC, which started trading on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) on Thursday, will venture into waste management in addition to starting renewable energy businesses in East Africa.
Manjula Perera, Managing Director WindForce, on the sidelines of the bell ringing ceremony to mark the start of trading, told the Business Times that waste management is a line of business the company is looking at. “The discussions are at an advanced stage to acquire a waste management project.” As one of the first players in solar power generation locally, WindForce has diversified into the full range of the renewable energy space.
Akbar Brothers (Pvt) Ltd, Hirdaramani (Pvt) Ltd and Debug Investments (Pvt) Ltd are the promoters of the company and with strong relationships in over 15 markets will see WindForce leveraging access into new overseas renewable energy opportunities.
WindForce is geographically diversified and has operations in Ukraine with a 9 mega watt (MW) solar power plant, Uganda with two hydro power plants generating 10.3 MW and a 10 MW solar plant and two solar plants in Pakistan generating 68 MW. The company is working on a solar project in Senegal, East Africa. The shares have been listed on the Main Board of the CSE under the ‘Utilities’ sector and follows a remarkable Initial Public Offering (IPO) by the company recording the largest capital raising since 2011, through which it raised Rs. 3.2 billion through a share issue of 202.6 million at an issue price of Rs.16.00 each. This IPO after a decade saw an oversubscription of approximately eight times within the first day of its offer. On the first day of trading WindForce saw foreign buying of Rs. 527.7 million. At an average price of Rs. 18.28 for the day, this gives an estimated net foreign buying of 28.9 million shares for Thursday.