Adani Airport Holdings Limited, an Indian company owned by Gautam Adani, seeks a $1.85 billion (Ksh242 billion) investment deal with the Kenyan government to expand Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
The proposed deal includes a 30-year concession structured under a Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) model.
On July 24, the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) confirmed receiving Adani’s proposal to upgrade Kenya’s main airport over the next 30 years, under the Cabinet-ratified JKIA Medium Term Investment Plan.
The investment plan includes upgrading the passenger terminal building, runway, taxiway, and apron which according to KAA cannot be funded under the current fiscal constraints without private funding.
Adani Airport Holdings Limited is a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited, which is owned by the Adani Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates.
Who is Gautam Adani
Adani, 62, was born on June 24, 1962, to a middle-class Jain family in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
He did his schooling at Sheth C.N. Vidyalaya School in Ahmedabad. At Gujarat University, he was admitted for a bachelor’s degree in commerce, but dropped out after the second year.
Gautam left his father’s textile shop to set up a commodity trading business in 1988, marking his entry into the business world.
He would later move to Mumbai in 1978 as a teenager and worked as a diamond sorter for Mahendra Brothers for about two to three years, after which he established his own diamond brokerage firm in Zaveri Bazaar.
In 1981, Gautam’s elder brother, Mansukhbhai Adani, bought a plastics unit in Ahmedabad and invited him to manage the operations. This venture became Adani’s gateway to global trading through Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) imports.
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He then began importing primary polymers for small-scale industries in 1985, before founding Adani Group in 1988 whose headquarters are in Ahmedabad.
Gautam Adani became the first Asian to break into the top three of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, ranking as the world’s third-richest person with net wort of $128.6 billion (Ksh16.7 trillion).
Companies Owned & Airports Managed by Adani
The group has 10 companies in its fold, with investments across mining, ports, trading, electricity and gas.
It includes Adani Enterprises, Adani Green energy, Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Limited (SEZ), Adani Energy Solutions, Adani Total Gas, Adani Power, Adani Wilmar, Adani Real Estate, Adani Edible Oil & Food.
The Adani Group also owns a controversial coal mine in Australia, the Carmichael mine, which has been a lightning rod for climate change activists.
Adani Airport Holdings itself was established in 2019 and it describes its goal as transforming airports into world-class travel ecosystems through airport development incorporating technology and sustainability.
Within just five years of its inception, the company now manages seven top airports in the Indian cities of Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati, and Thiruvananthapuram.
The airports include Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, and Mangaluru International Airport.
Others include Jaipur International Airport, Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.
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Similarly, Adani Airport Holdings claims it accounts for 25 percent of India’s passenger traffic and about 33 percent of the national air cargo traffic.
Controversies Surrounding Adani Company
Adani’s rise has been meteoric, partly due to the support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Their ties date back to when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat and Adani acquired land at cheap prices.
Claims of cronyism have followed Adani as he acquired assets like ports, airport contracts, and coal mines, becoming one of the biggest and most powerful businessmen in India in a short span of time.
The Adani Group has faced multiple government investigations for alleged money laundering and corruption. However, a private investigation in 2023 came closest to damaging Gautam Adani’s empire.
The US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research group accused Adani family members of using offshore shell companies to generate illegitimate revenue for Adani Group firms and siphon money from the conglomerate’s publicly listed entities.
After the accusations of “brazen stock manipulation,” Adani’s wealth fell sharply.
Nonetheless, Gautam Adani is currently the 19th richest person in the world with a net worth of $87.2 billion (Ksh11.3 trillion) as of July 2024.
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