Jobaaj Stories
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) has finished the acquisition of the troubled port SPV Karaikal Port.
Deep-water port Karaikal was built following the conditions of a concession given by the government of Puducherry. The 600-acre port that opened in April 2009 is 300 kilometres from the Chennai Port, near Karaikal in the Union Territory of Pondicherry.
Coal, sugar, cement, fertilizers, liquid cargo, project cargo, agricultural commodities, and containers are just a few of the products the port handles. After receiving a 30-year concession to run a port in Karaikal from the Puducherry government, infrastructure builder MARG Limited established an SPV in 2009 to create the notorious port.
The port had debt from 11 banks including banks like PNB, UBI, Indian Bank, CBI and IOB. The port's loan repayments were irregular, and its interest payments were getting delayed.
The banks sold their loan to Edelweiss ARC in 2015. Edelweiss couldn't turn around the port's operations as it sold the same to Omkara ARC in 2021 for a 27% haircut. Omkara ARC ultimately put the port through insolvency proceedings in April 2022.
In the bid to acquire Karaikal, Adani Ports, Vedanta, JSW Infrastructure, and few others were in the race until Adani Ports took the baton as the winner. The lenders of the post accepted the resolution plan.
The company announced that the much-awaited acquisition of the Karaikal port was completed upon receipt of approval from the NCLT. Moreover, the company also has plans to spend another Rs. 850 crores to upgrade the infrastructure, while it aims to double the capacity of the port in the next 5 years.
The stock of APSEZ closed at Rs. 627.80 per share yesterday.
- Aman Agarwal
