Adani Road Transport acquires 49% stake in MBCPNL for Rs 1,680 crore

Vehicles will not pay tolls if queue crosses yellow line

Adani Road Transport Ltd (ARTL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL), on August 16 announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 49 percent stake of Maharashtra Border Check Post Network Ltd (MBCPNL) at an Enterprise Value of Rs 1,680 crore.

Apart from the above acquisition, ARTL has an option to acquire additional stake of MBCPNL -- which is a subsidiary of Sadbhav Infrastructure Project Limited (SIPL) -- subject to regulatory approval.

"India has made tremendous progress in building its road network and interlinking the nation, an essential contributing factor in economic development,” ARTL CEO Krishna Prakash Maheshwari said on acquisition of MBCPNL's stake.

"As the nation’s largest infrastructure player, the Adani Group’s drive to create a world class portfolio of road networks is aligned with our mission to become India’s largest road infrastructure owner and operator. The multi-billion dollar profile of road assets we are executing across India encompasses a variety of business models including Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM), Toll-Operate-Transfer(TOT), Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and a service fee based network," he added.

The following acquisition strategically dovetails with the Adani Group’s formidable strength in logistics, which is a force-multiplying business adjacency for ARTL. The acquisition also implies an attractive EBITDA multiple of ~7x and is expected to close in Q3 FY22.

MBCPNL is an important gateway connecting Maharashtra with 6 neighbouring states, which covers over 20 percent of the commercial road traffic in India. The firm has 24 integrated checkposts with exclusive service fee collection rights from commercial vehicles for all key traffic routes in and out of Maharashtra. Out of 24 checkposts, MBCPNL has 18 operational, 4 near-operational, one near completion and one under construction.