MUMBAI: The Gautam Adani-led Adani Enterprises, the business incubation arm of the Ahmedabad-based Adani Group, has agreed to acquire Macquarie Asia Infrastructure Fund’s toll road portfolio for INR 3,110 crore.
The deal will enhance Adani’s roads transportation business, which includes eight hybrid annuity mode (HAM) projects, five build-operate-transfer (BOT) projects and one toll-operate-transfer (TOT) project in 10 states in the country with more than INR 41,000 crore of projects under management. The company aims to be a preeminent roads transportation platform in India.
According to the agreement inked between Adani and Macquarie, the former will acquire 56.8% stake in Gujarat Road and Infrastructure Company (GRICL) and 100% in Swarna Tollway (STPL) from Macquarie. The transaction is expected to close in September 2022. In GRICL, IL&FS owns 26.8% while the Gujarat government owns 16.4%. Adani, which has routed the Macquarie India toll road assets acquisition through its 100% arm Adani Road Transport (ARTL), said it will also evaluate the purchase of IL&FS stake in GRICL.
GRICL has two stretches of toll roads in Gujarat — Ahmedabad to Mehsana on SH-41 spanning 51.6km with majority passenger traffic connecting important northern Gujarat corridors, and Vadodara to Halol on SH-87 spanning 31.7km on the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor with proximity to several industries.
STPL has two stretches of toll roads in Andhra Pradesh — Tada to Nellore on NH-16 connecting important ports such as Chennai, and Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, spanning 110km and Nandigama to Ibrahimpatnam to Vijayawada on NH-65 spanning 48km, which connects southern metro cities and provides feeder traffic to NH16.
Macquarie’s India toll road portfolio has an operating profit of INR 456 crore with a net debt of INR 165 crore. This, said Adani, translates into an EV/ebitda multiple of 6.8x.
“ARTL is committed to the Adani Group’s nation-building initiative with a portfolio of more than 5,000-lane-km of highway projects under construction/operation. This is one of the largest portfolios of toll road assets with robust track record of growth and strong cash flow generation with low leverage, said ARTL CEO Krishna Prakash Maheshwari.
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In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said the fund required by NHAI for debt servicing in 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 will be Rs 31,282 crore, Rs 31,909 crore and Rs 30,552 crore, respectively.