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GMR Airports Limited (GAL) on Wednesday said it will increase its stake in GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) by acquiring an 11 per cent stake from Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad (MAHB) for approximately $100 million (about Rs 831 crore).
This will take GAL’s stake in Hyderabad airport operator GHIAL to 74 per cent.
The airport has India’s fourth-largest passenger handling capacity.
Kiran Kumar Grandhi, corporate chairman, GMR Group, said the acquisition was in line with “our objective of consolidating our presence in core assets of the group and signifies the importance of Hyderabad airport in the overall group portfolio.”
Currently, GAL owns 63 per cent stake in GHIAL. In a statement on Wednesday, GAL said it had signed a share purchase agreement with MAHB regarding the aforementioned deal. “The said acquisition would be for a negotiated aggregate consideration of $100 million,” it mentioned.
“The transaction, subject to the customary closing conditions, is expected to be concluded within a maximum of 135 days from the date of execution of the said share purchase agreement,” it added.
G B S Raju, business chairman (Airports), GMR Group, acknowledged the role of MAHB in growing the Hyderabad airport. “They have extended technical support during the initial years of both Delhi and Hyderabad Airports,” Raju added.
GAL also owns a majority stake in Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which runs the Delhi airport.
GHIAL recorded a net profit of Rs 32.99 crore for 2022-23, against a net loss of Rs 108.1 crore in 2021-22. During 2022-23, the Hyderabad airport handled 21 million passengers, 160,597 air traffic movements, and 142,338 metric tonnes of cargo. On a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis, passenger movements and ATMs witnessed a growth of 69 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively. Cargo experienced approximately four per cent Y-o-Y growth.
By March-end, the Hyderabad airport was connected to 66 domestic destinations, compared to the pre-Covid level of 55 domestic destinations, and 18 international destinations, as compared to 16 destinations before Covid. “Some domestic routes were lost due to internal airline issues, and some specific routes were temporarily suspended,” GHIAL had said in its annual report.
Medical tourism was leveraged to initiate operations to Dhaka and Baghdad. However, destinations like Chicago and Male were discontinued by airlines due to their internal business considerations regarding these routes in comparison to other routes, it noted.
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