Further Statement re COVID-19

RNS Number : 7794H

Infrastructure India plc

27 March 2020

 

27 March 2020

Infrastructure India plc

("IIP", the "Company and together with its subsidiaries the "Group")

Further Statement re COVID-19

Infrastructure India plc, an AIM quoted infrastructure fund investing directly into assets in India, provides a further update following the announcement on Tuesday 24 March 2020 that the Government of India had ordered a complete national lockdown of non-essential activity for a minimum of 21 days in an effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

This action has immediate and significant consequences for all businesses in India and, in particular, the impact on the logistics sector and on IIP's largest asset, Distribution Logistics infrastructure Limited ("DLI"), is likely to prevail both during and well beyond the lockdown period.

For DLI, all construction activities at its terminals have now ceased and while some of its freight is essential, movements of cargoes are now negligible due to closures across the supply chain in India.

As announced by the Company on 17 March 2020, the effect of an earlier lockdown in China had already had a material impact on Indian container freight and container cycles and this is expected to be amplified by the lockdown in India and other global cargo and transportation hubs. It is currently impossible to predict when DLI, or the wider market, will recover to normal volumes.  

In addition, IIP's wind and hydro energy assets are expected to begin to experience reduced demand with the operations of some industrial and commercial offtakers closed.

It is too early to quantify the effect of the lockdown for DLI and for the IIP portfolio companies, other than to note that the considerable impact it will have on all Indian businesses is likely to last for some time.

The wellbeing of IIP's stakeholders and the Indian communities in which IIP's portfolio companies operate is a key concern for the Company and IIP is supportive of the steps taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Government to protect India and its citizens in what are unprecedented times.  

The Board is working with DLI management and the management teams of IIP's other portfolio companies and continues to monitor the situation closely. 

Further announcements will be made, as appropriate, in due course.

Enquiries:

Infrastructure India plc  Sonny Lulla	www.iiplc.com Via Novella
Cenkos Securities plc Nominated Adviser & Joint Broker Ben Jeynes / Katy Birkin	[phone]
Nplus1 Singer Advisory LLP Joint Broker James Maxwell - Corporate Finance James Waterlow - Investment Fund Sales	[phone]
Novella	[phone]
Financial PR
Tim Robertson / Fergus Young

The information communicated within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

 

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