Industry

Adani in talks with Middle Eastern sovereign fund for $1 b Investment in airports



Mumbai: The Adani Group is in advanced talks with a Middle Eastern sovereign fund to raise up to $1 billion for its airports business, said people with knowledge of the matter.

The fundraising parleys come as group flagship Adani Enterprises launched a qualified institutional placement (QIP) on Wednesday to raise up to ₹4,200 crore ($500 million), lower than the initial target amid volatile markets globally, the people said. In addition to the base size of $500 million, the QIP has a greenshoe option of an equivalent amount. A final decision on the greenshoe option will be taken on Thursday, the people said. The Ahmedabad-based conglomerate is in talks to raise the fresh capital under Adani Airport Holdings in two tranches, with the first tranche likely to happen by the end of this quarter from the sovereign fund, the people said. They didn’t name the fund.

On the back of this, the group decided to trim its original QIP plan of raising up to $2 billion.

One of the persons said the group also wants to have the flexibility of raising a portion of the funds next year for the airports business, which is wholly owned by Adani Enterprises. The QIP has received soft orders of more than $650 million. The company said, in a statement on Wednesday, that it will offer a discount not exceeding 5% on the issue floor price.

The indicative floor price for the QIP is ₹2,962 per share, as per the term sheet. This implies a discount of 6% to the stock’s closing price of ₹3,152.90 apiece on the BSE on Wednesday. A total of 14.2 million shares will be issued. Jefferies, ICICI Securities and SBI Capital are the bankers for the issue.


A spokesperson for the Adani Group did not respond to ET’s email queries.Adani Enterprises, which houses the group’s airports, roads and data centre businesses, among others, has planned a capex of ₹80,000 crore for the current fiscal. Of this, ₹50,000 crore has been allocated for the airports business and Adani New Industries. Adani Airports-which has seven operational airports and an under-construction airport in Navi Mumbai-has outlined an investment of $21 billion over the next decade, group chief financial officer Jugeshinder Singh told ET earlier this year. The group has been operating in the airports business since 2019 and is currently the largest private operator of airports in India.



READ SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.