Shriram Transport Finance Company (STFC) has planned to raise around Rs 2,000 crore via secured/unsecured non-convertible debentures (NCDs). There would be one or more tranches of public issues and/or private placements during the current financial year, said a senior official.

“The first tranche of Rs 300-500 crore is likely to hit the market in July," said Umesh Revankar, managing director. He was talking on the sidelines of a court-convened meeting of equity shareholders, to get their approval for the scheme of arrangement between Shriram Holdings (Madras) Pvt Ltd and STFC.

The fund-raising plan comes at a time when the company is set for an overall growth this year of 12-15 per cent. As on March 31, STFC’s assets under management (AUM) stood at Rs 40,200 crore.

Revankar said STFC would be aggressive in used vehicles and the plan was to take operations into remote rural areas. “We plan to open a total of 400 rural networks, where we will be positioning our executives. And, 150 such locations are already added and we have started the operations. The basic idea is to acquire customers in the rural areas, which we feel is economically viable because most rural areas today have road connectivity and also mobiles," he said.

On their increase in gross non-performing assets, quarter-on-quarter, and in provisioning expenses, he said, “We lend to retail customers and whenever the economy goes slow, it happens with some. We are confident we will get back to normal. We should be able to put additional push on our collection and we should be able to improve it, but it should remain in the range between 2.7 to 3 per cent (of all assets); it will not drastically change," he said. “We continue with higher coverage to manage this."