$1 billion boarding pass? Adani Airport may raise equity from international investors as it charts expansion route
Mumbai:
Adani Airport Holdings Ltd
(AAHL) may raise around $1 billion in equity from
international investors
as it evaluates future growth plans and potential acquisitions, according to
Adani Group
CFO Jugeshinder Singh.
This would be the first time the airport business is raising equity capital from an external investor.
"Everyone wants to do airports with us - investors from the US, Middle East and Australia have evinced interest in investing in the business," said Sagar Adani, nephew of group chairman Gautam Adani.
Sagar Adani
is also executive director, Adani Green Energy.
The airport unit, fully owned by Adani Enterprises Ltd, is valued at around $20 billion, according to sources, higher than
GMR Airport
's market capitalisation of $10.4 billion. GMR runs airports in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Goa and Nagpur among others.
As per the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, India recorded a 10.35% annual growth in domestic air passenger traffic in FY25.
Riding expansion wave
Airlines carried a total of 14.54 million passengers.
CareEdge Ratings projects air passenger traffic in India to rise at a 9% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) between FY25 and FY27, taking the volume to 485 million.
With airports in Mumbai-Navi Mumbai and other key locations, AAHL aims to ride on this expansion to triple capacity over the next decade and a half.
AAHL, India's largest private airport operator, runs seven of them currently — Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram — and is putting the finishing touches to the one at Navi Mumbai that's set to open in August.
The company is currently fully funded but may look to bring in additional capital depending on timing and market conditions.
'We also have not decided whether we want to do it or not yet. So what we are thinking about is — is it a good idea for us to do it right now or should we wait two-three years once the build-out happens and the value is established,' said Adani CFO Singh.
GMR Group had secured a ₹6,300 crore investment from
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
(ADIA) to reduce debt at its promoter entity GMR Enterprises (GEPL) in January.
'We are open to acquisitions in India and internationally,' Singh said. 'For international deals, it will have to be an international city pair which caters to an Indian diaspora. If there's a lot of Indian passengers going to a specific airport in some other city in the world, and if that opportunity comes up, we will look at that.'
The airport business will be hived off as a separate subsidiary in the next two-three years, followed by listing.
AAHL served 94 million passengers in FY25, up 7% from FY24.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
17 minutes ago
- Time of India
India needs more infra to train larger AI models, says Krutrim's top executive
Ola's artificial intelligence arm Krutrim is looking to get its base infrastructure, from semiconductors to hardware, fast and cost-effective as the company scales up its AI services, senior vice-president and head of business A Navendu said. Krutrim, which raised $50 million in 2024, has seen few takers for its AI products due to poor documentation and lack of adequate technical maturity, ET reported earlier this month, citing several developers and startup founders. Navendu, who was previously chief information officer at Ola Electric , told ET that one of the biggest challenges in the country is the lack of infrastructure for training large models, as only 10,000 GPUs are currently available, and the rest of the GPUs under the IndiaAI Mission are still to be delivered. 'If you look at (US AI startup) Grok, it is trained on 100,000 GPUs and (ChatGPT developer) OpenAI, 200,000 every quarter. You have to cut some slack for Indian companies,' he said. Early this year, Krutrim announced that it would invest Rs 2,000 crore in Krutrim AI labs as part of a total investment of Rs 10,000 crore by next year. The second biggest challenge is data. Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories There is a dearth of Indic language data, said Chandra Khatri, who heads AI at Krutrim. 'If you look at data on the web, only 1% of it is Indian languages whereas the Indian population is 20% of the group. If you want to build for India, you need to scrape, digitise, scam and collect data. This is a challenge.' The company is working on a multibillion parameter model. To address the compute needs, it will use a mixture of its own and IndiaAI GPUs and will also explore building its own data centres, Navendu told ET. He did not disclose the details. Navendu spoke to ET on the sidelines of the launch of the company's agentic AI assistant Kruti, a consumer application that is autonomous and can take action on behalf of the user. It is currently integrated with Ola's ecosystem offering four services, including cab booking, food delivery, bill payment and image generation, with plans to expand further. The company is also in talks with multiple services across healthcare and shopping use cases. Sunit S, head of product design, said it will also pursue partnerships with ONDC, which offers services such as metro tickets and recharge.
Mint
29 minutes ago
- Mint
After US' 50% tariff blow, India now faces EU heat on steel quotas
New Delhi: The European Union (EU) has put India's individual quota on hold and placed it under a 'pooled quota" for exporting certain kinds of steel products to the 27-nation bloc, dealing a double whammy to a sector already reeling from America's 50% tariff. The latest move is meant to correct imbalances in the current quota system by restoring separate duty-free country-specific quotas for major exporters like Ukraine, UK, Türkiye and Korea. However, countries like India, which fall under an 'other countries" category, must share a pooled quota of around 12,500 tonnes with others, including China and Vietnam among others. The EU's notification was submitted to the Committee on Safeguards at World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday. The proposed changes will come into effect from 1 July and remain in effect till 30 June 2026. This shared quota, known as the 'residual quota," applies to 'product category 17', which covers 'angles, shapes and sections of iron or non-alloy steel." Also read US rejects India again at WTO: Response to auto tariffs plea mirrors rejection over steel, aluminium dispute Under the pooled quota mechanism, any country in the pool can export any quantity. The amount a country exports is deducted from the overall quota of the pool. This means a single, large producer can quickly exhaust the full quota, analysts said. However, any country in the pool that exports the product once the 12,500-tonne limit has been exhausted attracts a 25% tariff on that additional amount. The figure for Indian exports of these particular products to the EU was not immediately available. However, In FY25, Indian shipments of articles made from iron or steel, which include 'category 17' products, stood at $1.83 billion. This is of major significance for India because it is in the final leg of discussions for a free trade agreement with the 27-nation bloc. The EU had previously removed country-wise quotas for these products in 2022 after Ukraine—then the top supplier—was unable to export due to the war with Russia. That led to a globalized system where all countries could export under a common quota, as per the EU notification. Read this India likely to seek removal of US steel tariffs in trade talks rather than immediate retaliation Presenting New Delhi's stand, a senior official said that India will discuss the issue with the EU, as the notification has provided a window for consultations from 12 to 19 June. The decision may have mixed consequences for Indian exporters. 'Being placed in the third-country quota alongside China puts us at risk of losing our share, as China (alone) could exhaust the allocation early," said Pankaj Chadha, Chairman of the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), a body under the commerce ministry. Chadha is also managing director of Jyoti Steel Industries. These changes notified by the EU include removal of a 15% cap on any single country's share of the pooled quota. While the pooled quota ensures some continued market access, it poses a significant disadvantage when compared with countries that now enjoy exclusive duty-free quotas, experts said. 'The continued access to residual quotas offers a limited but important channel for Indian steel exports. The latest adjustments also provide an opening for India to press for full access without quotas under the ongoing India–EU free trade agreement negotiations," said Arun Kumar Garodia, director, Corona Steel. Also read Govt may harness public sector undertakings to drive green steel consumption 'The EU's latest revision of its steel import safeguards may appear targeted at restoring trade balance, but in practice, it entrenches discrimination against countries like India that lack dedicated quotas," said Ajay Srivartava, co-founder, Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI). 'By reintroducing exclusive duty-free quotas for the UK, Türkiye, and South Korea while limiting others—including India—to a small, shared residual quota, the EU has effectively locked India into a second-tier access regime," he said. Under the EU's revised safeguard system for steel, Ukraine has been allocated over 31,600 tonnes per quarter for these steel products, the UK 27,500 tonnes, Türkiye 22,900 tonnes, and South Korea 5,300 tonnes each quarter. The negotiations for an FTA with the EU are at an advanced stage and are likely to be signed in the next couple of months. Queries emailed to the commerce ministry remained unanswered till press time. And read Goyal begins France, Italy visit to deepen trade ties; India looks to fast-track EU FTA, global alliances
Time of India
36 minutes ago
- Time of India
Global Shocks won't Alter Our Plans for India: Masahiro Kihara
India's demographic advantages, GDP expansion and opportunity to broaden exports make it an important growth engine for Mizuho Financial Group , says Masahiro Kihara , chief executive of Japan's third-largest megabank with $1.9 trillion in assets. The group is constantly evaluating opportunities for investment and lending in India, and plans to double the headcount at its global capability centre here, he tells Joel Rebello and Sangita Mehta. Edited excerpts: What is driving Japanese interest in India? The future of India is very promising. From a demographic perspective, you have a lot of advantages. Besides wages, the working age population is still increasing, which is totally opposite from Japan. You have a stable democratic framework with robust digital infra. And beyond that you are inducing people to come and make in India (with) start-up India, production-based incentives and so on. The Japanese are looking for areas where they can grow. So, India is a very promising area. Also, Japan and India have a long-standing relationship sharing the same values, having sympathy towards each other. So, that gives Japanese companies confidence to invest here. Where does India fit into Mizuho's plans? There are 1,400 Japanese companies operating here and we bank with many of them. Many of these want to expand here. But there is also interest among Japanese companies to come here for the first time. We want to be supportive of the growth of Indian and Japanese companies. Also, we want to commit to the growth of India because both countries have been friends for many years. So, for us, India is a very important country. In November 2023, we increased our capital base to $500 million, so that our Indian operation can extend more lending. Are you likely to make more investments in India? I think at some point, we probably will need additional capital to inject here. And I'm happy to do that if there's a need for that. What would be the trigger for you to inject more capital? We have (invested) $500 million and based on the needs that we get from our customers I think it's sufficient right now. But as this country grows, I guess there will be much more for companies asking for lending. Any acquisitions that you're looking at in India? First of all, in terms of organic, we focus on five business areas: Japanese retail; asset management and wealth management in Japan; Japanese corporates; global corporate investment banking and sustainability. We are constantly looking at opportunities in these areas. So, I can't allude to what will happen in India. There have been reports about Mizuho acquiring a majority stake in Avendus Capital. What is the status? I can't allude to that. No comments. Will corporate banking continue to be your focus in India? We are particularly very good at corporate wholesale banking. In the global space, I think we should stick to wholesale banking because regional retail banking is very difficult. Wholesale banking is the area where we have expertise, we have strength. Given the global uncertainties in terms of rates, markets, trade and political tensions, what is your view on growth? Of course, there's a lot of uncertainties but at some point things will get clear. Then everybody will start adjusting to a new world order. So, I would say given that there's uncertainty from a global perspective, the activity might be slow. But once things get clear, activity will come back. Does it change the way you invest in India or will you have to relook at your plans here? I think India is a little bit insulated from all these things. I would say that India is a bit of a different story. Very different from Japan. So, we won't change what we were going to do in India. What would be the impact of the US tariff war on India? The effect on India is probably minimal. You might even benefit from production moving into India from other countries, given the fact that maybe the tariff rate is lower than the other countries. What is happening is that corporations are thinking of diversifying their supply chain from a stability perspective. Everybody is thinking about moving into areas that have growth potential. So, India is in a good position from that perspective. What advantages do you think India has over China? In the long run, the working age population, I think that's the most important part. For India it is going to grow. China is going to decrease. That's a big advantage. What are your plans on the global capability centre in India? We have around 600 people and we want to double that in two or three years and move in more and more operations here in India because India has a talent pool. Which are the sectors you're very optimistic about? In India there is ambition to grow in manufacturing from auto electronics, semiconductors and infrastructure. Increasingly, when the per capita (income) goes up, there should be increasing demand for retail too. India is constructing airports, highways, railroads. We have done many projects in the infrastructure sector. We have also beefed up the project finance team recently. The top 3 Japanese banks are here in India with deep pockets. How would you differentiate between yourselves and them? We at Mizuho are very good at industry research. We have a very strong global corporate and investment banking franchise, developed from 2015 when we purchased assets from RBS and onboarded 100 relationship managers. We want to integrate every capability that we need in the investment bank inside our bank, to get synergies between those capabilities. Based on these strengths, we'll try to bring all these capabilities into India too, and I think we can be competitive on them.
