The firm will expand its EPC, or engineering, procurement and construction, business to take on projects that other firms are developing, said Parmit Chadha, chief executive officer for strategy and corporate development. At present, the division only takes up work on projects being developed by GMR.

Last year, as economic growth floundered and infrastructure projects ran into a funding crunch amid delays in securing government approvals and acquiring land, GMR put new investments on hold and sold some of its assets. GMR said last month it will sell its 70% interest in GMR Energy (Singapore) Pte. Ltd to FPM Power Holdings Ltd for $600 million, and sell its coal mining assets in South Africa. GMR had a debt of Rs.30,588 crore in the half year to September.

In February, GMR Highways Ltd, a unit of GMR Group, said it had signed an agreement with Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Investments Pvt. Ltd to sell a 74% stake in GMR Jadcherla Expressways Ltd for Rs.206 crore.

"We will look for new opportunities as the recycled capital becomes available," Chadha said in an interview. "I emphasize what I mentioned earlier, that we will go only for projects which improve the quality of our portfolio and cash flows, and that we have revised our criteria accordingly."

On the investing criteria, he said the firm will only look to invest in those projects that have "near term cash flows." He did not specify the sectors the firm is looking to invest in. The company did look at some national highway stretches the government was tendering as maintenance contracts, but did not bid for them, he said.

Chadha said the successive stake sales had ensured that the firm had "more than enough in hand to cover our equity requirements for the next two years for existing projects".

The stake sales were not intended to bring down the debt levels on the company's balance sheet because project debt was anyway given to individual projects. The improvement in debt levels is incidental, he said.

The stake sales and partial lifting of the investment holiday follows nine successive quarters of losses and being removed as the operator of the Male airport late last year. It last posted a net profit of Rs.71.12 crore in the September 2010 quarter. In December 2012, the latest quarter for which earnings are available, the firms posted a Rs.217.41 crore loss.

Chadha said the company's business strategy, which GMR calls the "asset light, asset right" strategy, was put in place in 2012 when it became very clear to the company that getting funds from outside was "going to be an issue", given the state of the markets around the world.

In the December quarter, the airports segment contributed 67% of the firm's revenue while power and roads contributed 21.9% and 1.2%, respectively. EPC contributed about 14.3% of the company's revenue.

Rupa Shah, a research analyst with brokerage Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt. Ltd, said the firm's aim would be to ensure that the projects it already owns start making money.

"Currently, the company is trying to turn its highways, roads and airport business cash-flow positive," Shah said.

Opportunities exist for investment in operating and maintaining old, government-run power plants, apart from government-run highways the National Highways Authority of India is trying to bid out to private developers for maintenance, Shah said.