Adani Group plans international airports push
Indian conglomerate seeks opportunities of ‘size and relevance’ after US justice department drops charges against billionaire chair Gautam Adani
The airports arm of Adani Group is planning a push into the international market after the US justice department’s decision to drop charges against the Indian conglomerate’s billionaire chair Gautam Adani.
Adani Airport Holdings, which at present operates only in India, earlier this year put in a bid to operate Sicily’s main airport, and Jeet Adani, who is Gautam Adani’s younger son and controls the company, told the FT it would now “very selectively” seek other opportunities “of size and relevance”.
Adani Group’s interest in overseas airports comes as the conglomerate explores making a bid for Associated British Ports, Britain’s largest port operator, in what would be its first investment in the UK.
A group of global and domestic investors, including BlackRock and Temasek, will invest about $1bn in Adani Airport for a 5.54 per cent share, valuing it at $18bn, the Indian company announced on Wednesday. It said the investment represented “a significant institutional endorsement” of its scale, operating capabilities and long-term growth potential.
Jeet Adani told the FT that the $1bn investment would primarily be used to increase Adani Airport’s footprint within India, where it plans to increase the total annual capacity of its eight airports over the next five years to 200mn passengers from the current 120mn.
Adani said the group would also bid for the 11 airports the Indian government is planning to offer under a 50-year public-private partnership lease model. “Absolutely we’ll be participating in those,” he said. “We are also always looking for some greenfield opportunities within the country.”
Adani Airport made winning bids for all six airports that the Indian government put on the block under a similar structure in 2019.
It has since acquired Mumbai’s main airport and built a new one near the city, making it India’s largest private operator and prompting concerns about a lack of competition in the sector.
Last month, the country’s civil aviation ministry said it would cap the number of airports awarded to a single bidder “to mitigate the risks arising from market concentration and potential overleveraging, including their possible cascading impact across projects”.
The US Department of Justice announced in May that it was dropping charges filed in 2024 against Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani related to an alleged bribery scheme over a solar power project in India. The same month, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled a fraud case against the two. Both have consistently denied any wrongdoing.
“These two years when there were all these questions going around, the way we went [was] very focused on only our business, on only our execution,” Jeet Adani said. “That’s what investors have seen through this cycle.”
He said Adani Airport offered its investors a “very unique opportunity . . . where they have the ability to get exposure to the infrastructure sector of India as well as the consumer sector”.