Billionaire Adani to buy Mumbai airport in bold aviation bet

Adani Enterprises is seeking a controlling stake in Mumbai’s international airport as billionaire Gautam Adani continues his aggressive push into what was until recently the world’s fastest-growing aviation market. Adani Airport Holdings will acquire the debt of GVK Airport Developers, the holding company of GVK Power & Infrastructure, according to an exchange filing Monday. Adani will also buy the 23.5% stake held in Mumbai International Airport by Airports South Africa and Bidvest Group, and then work to acquire control. It’s a high-stakes bet on an industry that’s been brought to its knees by the coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak in India is only gathering pace, sickening more than 78,700 people on Sunday alone, a one-day record. And while budget carriers mushroomed across the South Asian nation as people took to the skies for the first time, poorer economies with rickety infrastructure and a reliance on natural resources have been hit much harder by Covid-19, casting doubt on the ability of consumer-led sectors to quickly bounce back. Still, the airport in Mumbai, India’s second busiest with 46m annual passengers in the 12 months through March, has been a prized possession for GVK and it’s fought hard to retain control, even attempting to buy out minority partners to ward off Adani. However high debt levels -- GVK’s airports business had obligations of 57.5b rupees ($781m) as of March 2019 -- and a string of government investigations into financial irregularities mean the group has lost much of its bargaining power.<br/>