Months after the Sagarmala Finance Corporation Limited (SMFCL) board approved a Rs 4,300 crore package in its first foray into maritime financing, the lender has now set its sights on raising Rs 10,000 crore ($1 billion) in FY 2026-27.
The state-owned lender, which became India's first Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) exclusive to the maritime sector in June 2025, reportedly plans to raise the money through bonds, term loans and foreign-currency borrowing.
The maritime lender also has plans to enter the bond market for the first time in June this year, a Reuters report said on Friday, citing Managing Director L.V.S. Sudhakar Babu.
Notably, alongside the December 30 announcement of the SMFCL board approving the Rs 4,300 crore lending package, the company had also announced plans to scale up its loan book from Rs 4,300 crore fund to Rs 8,000 crore over the course of FY 2025-26.
"The company is aiming to build a loan book size of Rs 8,000 crore in FY 2025-26, to further strengthen its position in maritime financing," the SMFCL had said at the time.
The maritime lender also manages the Maritime Development Fund (MDF), which has a corpus of Rs 25,000 crore to provide long-term financing for the shipping sector.
The MDF includes a Maritime Investment Fund of Rs 20,000 crore—which gets 49 per cent participation from the Centre—and an Interest Incentivization Fund of Rs 5,000 crore to reduce the effective cost of debt and improve project bankability.
The SMFCL aims to disburse Rs 8,000-9,000 crore in loans by the end of FY 2026-27, of which it has already disbursed Rs 1,100 crore after it sanctioned Rs 3,700 crore for two greenfield ports in Andhra Pradesh, the report added.
Sagarmala, which has a credit rating of AA+, is also seeking a Rs 2,000 crore equity infusion from the government to maintain a healthy debt-to-equity ratio as eyes its Rs 10,000 crore loan book goal.
"As per industry standards, we can leverage up to seven to eight times our capital base ... In the event the proposed equity infusion takes some time, we may consider raising funds through perpetual bonds later in the year," Babu noted.
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