Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) has completed the acquisition of Karaikal Port Private Limited (KPPL) pursuant to National Company Law Tribunal’s (NCLT) approval.
APSEZ was declared as the successful resolution applicant under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) of KPPL.
The acquisition was set at a INR1,485 crores ($181.2 million) price tag.
Karaikal Port is an all-weather deep-water port on India’s eastern coast that was developed on the Build, Operate and Transfer format under the Public-Private Partnership by the Government of Puducherry.
The Karaikal Port was commissioned in 2009 and was developed in the Karaikal District of the Union Territory of Puducherry, around 300 kilometres south of Chennai.
It is the only major port between Chennai and Tuticorin, and its strategic location allows the port easy access to the hinterland of Central Tamil Nadu.
The port gets a 14-metre water draft and has a land area of over 600 acres.
Its existing infrastructure includes five operational berths, three railway sidings, mechanised bulk cargo handling system including mechanised wagon-loading and truck-loading systems.
It also includes two mobile harbour cranes, a large cargo storage space that includes open yards, 10 covered warehouses, and four liquid storage tanks.
The port has a built-in cargo handling capacity of 21.5 million metric tonnes. The upcoming CPCL’s 9 MMTPA new refinery at Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu presents an opportunity for Karaikal Port to handle an additional large volume of liquid cargo.
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Commenting on the occasion, CEO and Director of APSEZ, Karan Adani said: “With acquisition of Karaikal port APSEZ now operates 14 ports in India.
“APSEZ will spend further INR850 crores ($103,7 million) over time to upgrade infrastructure in order to reduce the logistics cost for the customers. We are envisaging to double the capacity of the port in the next five years and also add container terminal to make it a multipurpose port.”
This announcement comes in the same week that APSEZ announced that it has handled 8.6 million TEU from April 2022 to March 2023, reflecting a 5 per cent year-on-year increase.
This recent acquisition also adds to a long list of investments APSEZ had made in the past year.
In April of last year, APSEZ signed an agreement for its 100 per cent stake in, and acquisition of Ocean Sparkle Ltd (OSL).
More recently, Adani received approvals from NCLT Ahmedabad and NCLT Hyderabad for acquiring the remaining 58.1 per cent stake in Gangavaram Port Limited (GPL).
