Rakesh Gangwal may sell 3.4% in IndiGo for ₹6,831 crore via block deal

IndiGo co-founder Rakesh Gangwal to sell 3.4% stake via block deals as part of his long-term exit plan; total promoter stake now down to 13.53%

Rakesh Gangwal is likely to divest about 3.4 per cent stake in IndiGo for ₹6,831 crore via block deals. This is part of his long-term plan to gradually reduce his stake in India’s largest airline, which he cofounded with Rahul Bhatia in August 2006.

 

Sources said the floor price for the transaction had been set at ₹5,175 per share, nearly 4.6 per cent below the last closing price of ₹5,424. Currently, Gangwal and his related entities hold a 13.53 per cent stake in IndiGo.

 

Investment banking firms Goldman Sachs (India) Securities, Morgan Stanley India Company and J P Morgan India are said to be the placement agents for the stake sale

 

Over the past few years, Rakesh Gangwal and his related entities have gradually reduced their stake in IndiGo through multiple block deals. In August last year, Gangwal and his family trust sold a 5.83 per cent stake for about ₹10,500 crore. In March 2024, he offloaded another 6 per cent for ₹6,786 crore. In 2023, his wife Shobha Gangwal sold 3 per cent in August for ₹2,802 crore, and his family a 4 per cent stake for ₹2,900 crore in February. 

 

Gangwal had resigned from IndiGo’s board on February 18, 2022, declaring he would gradually exit his holding over five years.

 

His decision came in the wake of a feud with copromoter Rahul Bhatia which lasted over two years until December 2021. The dispute became public in July 2019, when Gangwal wrote to the Securities and Exchange Board of India alleging corporate-governance lapses at the airline company — claims that the Bhatia group denied. Both promoters then took the matter to the London Court of International Arbitration, which gave its ruling in September 2021.

 

Following this, IndiGo held an extraordinary general meeting on December 30, 2021, where shareholders approved the removal of a clause in the Articles of Association that granted the promoters the right of first refusal on share sales. This paved the way for Gangwal to begin divesting his stake.