THE GMR group which, along with Germany’s Fraport, has won the rights to modernise the Delhi airport, has wide interests in the infrastructure sector. The Hyderabad-based group is promoted by Mr G M Rao and was one of the first private companies to get into the business of generating electricity, when the sector was opened up in 1994, The group has since set up three plants-- GMR Energy (Mangalore), GMR Power Corporation (Chennai) and the Vemagiri Power Generation (Andhra Pradesh).

The promoters own about 71% of the equity share capital while the rest is with banks, financial institutions and public. The Rs 2,500 crore group already has a presence in airport building being selected to build the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Andhra Pradesh, along with technical partner Malaysian Airport Holding Berhad.

The group’s other interests include highways, sugar and ferro alloys. According to the company, it has completed two projects under the Golden Quadrilateral Scheme-- the 4-lane highway between Toni and Anakapalli on NH-S near Visakhapatnam in AP. The other highway is between Tambaram - Tindivanam on NH-45 in Tamil Nadu. The group has manufacturing presence in sugar, under the lone-listed group company, GMR Industries. This unit has the capacity to crush about 3,125 tonnes of sugarcane a day, which is small compared with India’s largest sugar plant, Bajaj Hindustan, which can crush 57,000 tonnes of cane a day- In ferro alloys, GMR Industries has the capacity to make 25,000 tonnes a year. On Thesday, the GMR Industries stock ended 7.3% higher at Rs 184.05. with the volume unusually high at 2,27,442 shares on the BSE.

GVK

GVK, on the other hand, is a diversified business group with interests in a wide range of business including power, roads, urban infrastructure, bioscience, hotels and manufacturing. In recent years, GVK has increasingly focused on the power and infrastructure sectors. Apart from the projects in the power senor, in the infrastructure, GVK has constructed the Jaipur-Kishangarh Expressway project, which is a segment of the golden quadrilateral National highway project of the government of India. The group is promoted by GV Krishna Reddy, the chairman of GVK group. He is a first generation entrepreneur who established GVK four decades ago. The group recently underwent a restructuring with the intention that GVK Power & Infrastructure (GVKPL) becoming a holding company of the power projects promoted by group companies: GVK Industries and Gautami Power.