In a filing to exchanges, Adani Ports confirmed a CNBC-TV18 newsbreak and announced that it intends to acquire 75 percent Stake in Krishnapatnam Port Company Limited (KPCL) for Rs 13,572 crore. Krishnapatnam Port is the second-largest private sector port in India, after Mundra.

Adani Ports expects the transaction to be completed within the next 120 days.

KPCL is a multi-cargo facility and handled 54 mmt of cargo in FY19. The company’s revenue for the financial year 2018-19 was Rs 2,394 crore.

Adani Ports has said that the acquisition will accelerate its aim to becoming a 400 mmt company. This is the largest acquisition by them till date.

Adani Ports has claimed that this acquisition will push its market share from 22 percent to 27 percent on a pan-India basis. the deal will be funded through internal accruals and existing cash balance.

Robbie Singh, the group CFO of Adani Port, said on an investor conference call that the deal has been done at a valuation of 10 times the calendar year EBITDA.

"The deal will have a stabilisation period of 6-9 months. After stabilisation, the valuation metric should be 8.6 EBITDA. The deal is EPS accretive and the payback period for equity is at four years," Singh informed.

The company's scrip ended 0.17 percent in the red on Friday but for the week rallied over three percent.

First Published:Jan 3, 2020 7:01 PM IST