Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (“APSEZ”), part of Adani Group, recently received approvals from NCLT Ahmedabad and NCLT Hyderabad for acquiring the remaining 58.1% stake in Gangavaram Port Limited (GPL) through the composite scheme of arrangement. With this stake purchase, GPL will become a 100% subsidiary of APSEZ.

APSEZ has already acquired 31.5% stake in the company from Warburg Pincus and another 10.4% from the Government of Andhra Pradesh in FY22. The acquisition of 58.1% stake from DVS Raju & family will be through a share swap arrangement and will result in issuance of around 47.7mn APSEZ shares to the erstwhile GPL promoters stated an official release from GPL.

Commenting on the occasion, Mr Karan Adani, CEO and Whole-time Director, APSEZ said, “Acquisition of GPL is a key milestone in consolidating our position as India’s largest transport utility and in achieving East Coast & West Coast parity. Gangavaram Port has excellent rail & road network connectivity and is the business gateway to the hinterland spread over eight states. The recent addition of a container handling terminal will enable us to accelerate our growth of cargo volumes”.

APSEZ also brings world-class logistics synergies to the table, which will propel Gangavaram Port to a potential cargo volume of 250 MMT. This will boost the pace of industrialization of Andhra Pradesh, added Mr Adani and said that GPL will benefit from APSEZ’s pan-India footprint, logistics integration, customer centric philosophy and operational efficiencies.

In FY2022, the port handled cargo volumes of around 30 million metric tonnes, generated revenue of Rs 1,206 crore and EBITDA of Rs 796 crore, which resulted in an EBITDA margin of 66%. GPL is a debt-free company with a cash balance of Rs 1,293 crore as of March’22 end.