Gautam Adani’s Adani Group said on Monday that it will acquire GVK Group’s stake in Mumbai airport, thus becoming the country’s largest private airport operator. Adani Group will have 74 per cent stake in Mumbai’s Chattarpati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, post the stake purchase transaction, with 50.5 per cent being bought from GVK Group and 23.5 per cent from minority partners including Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), and Bidvest Group.
“Adani Airport Holdings Limited, the holding company of Adani Group for its airports business and a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited) has entered into an agreement to acquire the debt of GVK Airport Developers Limited (GVK ADL),” Adani Enterprises said in a regulatory filing.
Adani Group already has six airports under its belt, having won bids to run six Airport Authority-built non-metro airports in Lucknow, Jaipur, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore. The other private operator, GMR Group handles the Delhi and Hyderabad airports.
GVK ADL is the holding company through which GVK Group holds 50.50 per cent equity stake in Mumbai International Airport Limited, which in turn, holds 74 per cent stake in Navi Mumbai International Airport Limited.
“The Adani Group will also take steps to complete the acquisition of a 23.5 per cent equity stake from ACSA and Bidvest in Mumbai International Airport, for which it has obtained approval from Competition Commission of India,” Adani Enterprises added.
At 11:20 am, the shares of Adani Enterprises were trading lower by 2.1 per cent at Rs 282, as against a 1 per cent gain on the benchmark indices. The shares had touched an intra-day high of Rs 297.55 and a low of Rs 281.45 thus far.