GMR Airports Infra to acquire minor stake in IT WAISL for ₹56 crore

GMR Airports Infrastructure Ltd on Tuesday, April 30, announced that it will buy an 8.4% stake in digital infrastructure company Waisl Limited for ₹56.66 crore.

The deal is part of GMR Airports’ plans to strengthen its presence in all airport-related businesses.

GMR Airports shares however dropped more than 1.6% to hit a low of ₹85.50 per share on the NSE following the announcement. However, the stock recovered some of early losses to trade 1.6% lower at ₹85.7 apiece on the BSE at 2:30 pm.

GMR Airports on Tuesday informed stock exchanges in a filing that the company has signed a share purchase agreement to buy 4.60 lakh equity shares of Waisl Ltd (WAISL) representing 8.4% of the equity shares from Utthishta Virat Fund for ₹56.66 crore.

Utthishta Virat Fund is an existing shareholder of WAISL, which is engaged in delivering end to end digital infrastructure at airports and operates as an exclusive partner for IT services at airports.

WAISL has shown a healthy growth in its revenue between 2021 and 2023. The company reported revenue from operations at ₹391 crore for FY23, ₹152 crore in FY22 and ₹143 crore in FY21.

GMR Airports clarified that the proposed acquisition of shares from Utthishta Virat Fund would not be a related party transaction and promoter/promoter group of the company do not hold any interest in the said Transaction.

GMR Airports said that it has been exploring opportunities of investing in entities engaged in Airport adjacencies/ Airport related businesses etc. to strengthen its presence in all aspects of airport related/airport adjacent businesses.

There are no governmental or regulatory approvals required for the above acquisition.

GMR Airports Infrastructure Ltd, formerly known as GMR Infrastructure Ltd, operates five airports at Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The company last month reported a 21% rise in passenger traffic at its five airports in April-February period of FY24 at 11,01,57,962 passengers.

Delhi Airport traffic continued to trend upwards and handled the highest ever YTD Pax traffic of over 6.7 crore Pax mark as on February 29, 2024.