The Adani Group is planning to deploy the over $2 billion that it expects to receive from the divestment of stake in Adani Wilmar, on three major segments – airports, green hydrogen and in new initiatives, with a major chunk going to airports, sources said.
Around $1-1.2 billion will be spent by the conglomerate on airports, including expansions as well as acquisitions, the sources said. Another $300-500 million will be spent on the company’s ambitious green hydrogen project and the remaining on new initiatives under Adani Enterprises such as digital, they added.
Last week, the group flagship Adani Enterprises announced that it was exiting FMCG company Adani Wilmar, a joint venture between the Adani Group and Wilmar International. The Adani Group said it will be divesting its entire 44 per cent stake in the venture to Wilmar. At current share price, the worth of Adani’s holding in the venture is a little over $2 billion.
This is part of Adani’s strategy to focus only on infrastructure and exit non-core businesses. The exit also gives the group more dry powder that can be utilised for investing in its core infrastructure businesses.
Infra segments
While Adani Airport Holdings is investing in upgrading many of the airports for which it has signed concession agreements with the Airports Authority of India, it has built Navi Mumbai International Airport from scratch and expects to operationalise it early this year. Some part of the funds have been earmarked for expanding capacity at the airport, while some will be kept for bidding for other airports that the government intends to modernise and upgrade.
Under Adani New Industries, it is setting up a green energy ecosystem, which will have an annual capacity of one million tonnes (mt) by FY27 in the first phase, to be increased to 3 mt over the next 10 years or so.
In FY25 so far, the group, on a consolidated basis, has spent $9 billion as capex and expects to end the year with a capex of over $15 billion, as per its guidance. Major portion of the capex — $8.8 billion — has been spent by Adani Enterprises, Adani Green Energy, Adani Power and Adani Cements, data showed.