Conflict Over Stake in Mumbai Airport

The Adani Group has dragged the shareholders of the GVK Group-run Mumbai airport (MIAL) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MOCA) to the Bombay High Court, seeking a direction to them to allow buying out the minority stake held by South African firm Bidvest in the airport.

The South African firm Bidvest owns 13.5 per cent stake in the country’s second busiest airport. Other shareholders are Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) Global which owns 10 per cent, Airports Authority of India 26 per cent and GVK Airport Holdings, which is the majority owner with a 50.5 per cent ownership. The petition filed on October 16, 2019, names these shareholders along with the MOCA as respondents. Bidvest had entered into an agreement with Adanis to sell its entire stake in the airport for 1,248 crore. The Adanis had also offered to buy out ACSA at the similar price. The Adanis, that has won the bid to run six other AAI-run airports last February, had offered around 950 crore to ACSA Global, valuing the world’s busiest single-runway airport that handles around 1,000 flight movements a day. Adani in its suit filed on September 04 has claimed that its share purchas agreement dated March 05, 2019 with Bidvest, held through its Mauritian arm, is valid, subsisting and binding. The present suit is being filed seeking specific performance of the agreement executed between the plaintiff and Bidvest for purchasing its entire shareholding of 1,62,000,000 shares representing 13.5 per cent of the fully paid-up share capital of MIAL, the suit said.

Adani Group is readying to invest 18,000 crore in its airport business, including 10,000 crore in acquiring a large stake in Mumbai International Airport. The remainder 8,000 crore is to be spent on developing Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mangaluru airports.