Mumbai-based rooftop solar energy company, CleanMax, has announced that its subsidiary CleanMax IPP has received ₹1.58 billion ($22.6 million) in a loan from PTC India Financial Services to refinance loans from KKR Financial Services (KKR NBFC).

KKR NBFC is a non-banking finance arm of private equity company KKR. It had provided the loan to CleanMax IPP in January 2018. CleanMax is also expected to deploy the funds to meet the capital expenditure for the development of its Bellary project which consists of a 32 MW solar project owned by CleanMax IPP.

Gravitas Legal was the adviser to PTC India Financial Services, a lender to the power sector financier promoted by power trading services company PTC India.

“While the transaction was in itself a routine project finance deal, the refinancing and the fact that this was a project where electricity was distributed through open access made it stand out. Further, customization of documentation and presenting due diligence findings at the promoter level also contributed to making it a noteworthy transaction,” said Tanuj Sud, a partner at Gravitas Legal, who led the transaction advisory team.

Until April 2018, CleanMax claims to have successfully installed more than 300 rooftop projects for over 100 companies, with an on-site operating capacity of more than 170 MW. According to India Solar Market Leaderboard 1H 2018, CleanMax was the top rooftop installer in India in 1H 2018.

In November 2017, CleanMax raised $15 million (~₹964.52 million) investment from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. IFC invested in convertible debentures in of the company. This was the first time IFC acquired equity stake in a distributed-generation firm.

CleanMax has also raised $100 million (₹6.5 billion) in equity financing from Warburg Pincus, a New York-based private equity firm in 2017.

Shaurya is a staff reporter at MercomIndia.com with experience working in the Indian solar energy industry for the past four years in various roles. Prior to joining Mercom, Shaurya worked with a renewable energy developer and a consulting company. Shaurya holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Management from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom.