Adani Group bids highest for 5 AAI airports
25 Feb 2019
Home-grown infrastructure major, Adani Group, has emerged the highest bidder for five of the six non-metro airports run by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) being privatised by the central government, thereby making a big entry into the airports business.
Adani Group became the highest bidder for the five of the six non-metro airports being privatised.
The group placed the highest price bids for Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mangalore and Thiruvananthapuram airports, when the bids were opened today.
Bids for the Guwahati airport could not be opened due to a stay granted by the Guwahati High Court against the privatisation process, reports said, adding that bid results cannot also be made public.
The five airports and their assets, currently run by the AAI, will be handed over to Adani Group for operation and management as well as upgradation and development of additional air-side terminals, city-side and land-side infrastructure for 50 years.
Under the single stage bidding process, the winning bid is decided on the basis of the highest monthly per-passenger fee that the concessionaire will offer to the AAI. Against this, AAI had followed a revenue-sharing model for the existing privatised airports such as Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
Besides KSIDC bidding for the Thiruvananthapuram airport, others in the running included the GMR Group, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), Fairfax India Holdings Corporation, Australia’s AMP Capital and PNC Infratech Ltd.
Ahmedabad-based Adani Group is one of India’s largest integrated infrastructure conglomerates with interests in natural resources (coal mining and trading), logistics (ports, logistics, shipping and rail), energy (renewable and thermal power generation, transmission and distribution), and agro (commodities, edible oil, food products, cold storage and grain silos), real estate, public transport infrastructure, consumer finance and defence.