India’s Leading BFSI Companies 2020

India’s Leading BFSI Companies 2020 E - 2 Experts’ View Anirban Chakraborty Managing Director & CEO Tourism Finance Corporation of India Limited How has the Indian tourism scenario and its financing aspect changed in the past couple of years? The Indian tourism and hospitality industry has emerged as one of the key drivers of growth among the services sector in India. Apart from increasing foreign tourists arrivals, India’s rising middle class and increasing disposable incomes has continued to support the growth of tourism sector. The Indian government, realizing the huge potential, has taken several steps to make India a global tourism hub such as E-visa, PRASAD Scheme etc. Traditionally, leisure tourism was the main stay of this sector. However, over the years, a diverse portfolio of niche tourism products viz. cruises, adventure, medical, wellness, sports, MICE, eco- tourism, film, rural, religious and spiritual tourism have emerged. The tourism projects are capital intensive and have long implementation and gestation period, the cash-flows in the initial years of operations are low and assets have a long life of 25-30 years requiring tailor-made financing options. TFCI understands this complexity and provides adequate moratorium and longer repayment tenure with step- up amortization in line with projects cashflows to help the projects to stabilize and become sustainable in the long-run. Please explain in brief your core business areas – tourism project financing, other financing, tourism advisory services TFCI provides financial assistance to enterprises, for setting-up and/or development of tourism related activities, facilities and services, which inter-alia include hotels, restaurants, holiday resorts, amusement parks and complexes for entertainment, education and sports, convention halls, all forms of transport industry, travel and tour operating agencies, etc. Further, TFCI also has core focus for providing financial assistance in social and urban infra projects such as health care and education. In addition, we at TFCI, also consider financing to industrial/manufacturing/service sector and related activities, facilities and services on selective basis. TFCI has also been providing advisory services by way of conceptualisation of the project, feasibility/viability study and or loan syndication to facilitate new promoters in implementation of the project. TFCI provides all forms of financial assistance for new, expansion, diversification/ modernisation projects in tourism and other industries and related activities, facilities and services, in the following forms viz: Rupee Loans, Equipment Finance, Corporate Loan, Structured Financing etc. What are some of the key initiatives taken by the company in the core business areas? TFCI over the last 30 years has successfully played the role of catalyst and assisted more than 897 projects across all states in the country and sanctioned loans aggregating ` 11500 crore thereby contributing to the creation of tourism infrastructure having a direct bearing on the development of the industry. TFCI has been instrumental in creation and addition of 50,350 hotel rooms in the country (approved category) and contributed to generating direct employment to about 93,286 in tourism and other industry. TFCI has not only provided assistance to hotels/resorts but also assisted entrepreneurs who have pioneered new concepts/ products in the hospitality sector viz. first amusement-cum-water park at Mumbai (Essel World); first water sports complex at Goa; first dolphinarium (later on sea-lion show) near Chennai; Indian Railways’ ultra-luxurious ‘Palace on Wheels’; first meditation spa resort viz. ‘Ananda in the Himalayas’ at Narendranagar, Uttarakhand; restoration and conversion of erstwhile abodes of royal lineage into heritage hotels viz. Umaid Bhawan Palace, Devigarh Fort, Khimsar Fort (Rajasthan) and Jehan Numa Palace (Bhopal). Apart from providing financing, TFCI has been providing consultancy services to Central/State Government agencies for drafting tourism master plans/policies, infrastructure/ circuit development etc. What are the company’s future plans? While financing to tourism sector shall continue to be our primary focus, TFCI is constantly looking out for various other financing avenues for diversified growth and riskmitigation. We continue to identify opportunities in times of adversity in the sector and are poised to grow sustainably on a year-on-year basis. TFCI proposes to increase the share of businesses from social and urban infra projects viz. health care, education etc. mainly in Tier II/Tier III cities across India. TFCI shall also focus on fee-generating businesses like Debt Syndication, Advisory and Investment Banking activities for small and mid-cap companies. Dun & Bradstreet