NEW DELHI: Billionaire Gautam Adani on Wednesday said that the addition of the Mumbai International Airport and the Navi Mumbai International Airport in its existing portfolio will provide Adani Enterprises a “transformational platform” that would help shape and create strategic adjacencies for the Group’s other B2B businesses.
The group already runs six major airports across India. “This acquisition helps us redesign the way we will serve our customer base and bridge our B2C and B2B business models,” Gautam Adani said in a statement on Wednesday.
The group had announced on Monday that it had finally acquired a 74 per cent stake in Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL)—50.50 per cent from GVK Group and 23.5 per cent equity stake from South African entities- ACSA and Bidvest. MIAL also holds a 74 per cent equity stake in the upcoming Navi Mumbai airport project.
With this takeover, the Adani group has now become the country’s second biggest private airport operator in less than two years since it entered the airport operations business in India. The Group was previously awarded the operations of six AAI Airports—Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangaluru—via public-private partnership (PPP) for 50 years.
“From a medium to long-term perspective, Mumbai is well on its way to become one of the top five global metropolitan centers of the 21st century... Over this period, India’s top 30 cities are expected to each require two airports and Adani Airports sees itself well-positioned to help build the infrastructure platform required,” Gautam Adani said in the statement. The diversified business conglomerate has also said that it has now set its eyes on becoming the country’s biggest airports operator.