Adani Enterprises up 2% as Cabinet clears leasing of 3 AAI airports to Co

Shares of Adani Enterprises gained 2.53 per cent to Rs 245.10 on the BSE on Thursday after the Union government announced the leasing of three Airports Authority of India (AAI)-run airports to the company.

Yesterday, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar announced that the government has given its go-ahead to lease out Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram, and Jaipur airports through public-private partnership (PPP). The airports will be leased for development, operation and maintenance on a PPP model for 50 years, he said.

The three airports are part of the six airports won by the Adani group under a competitive bidding process. The group had, in February, signed a concession agreement with AAI to manage airports in Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Mangalore but approval regarding the other three had been deferred.

At 10:20 AM, the stock was trading 1.6 per cent higher at Rs 242.85 as compared to 0.8 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex. A total of 46.9 lakh shares have changed hands on the NSE and BSE so far. The stock was trading close to its 52-week high of Rs 261.10, hit on February 20, 2020.

Privatisation of airports, development of maintenance repair and overhaul facilities along with freeing up of defence airspace for passenger aircraft have been proposed as the government’s relief plan to support the aviation sector amid the pandemic.

Besides, inter-ministerial discussions are also under way for privatisation of six other airports — Amritsar, Varanasi, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Raipur and Trichy.

As such, shares of infrastructure firms GVK Power and GMR Infra also rose. GVK Power and Infra was locked in 5 per cent upper circuit at Rs 2.73 on the BSE in today's session while GMR Infra also climbed 1.4 per cent to Rs 21.45 on the BSE.