IndiGo block deal: Nearly 2.3 crore shares change hands, stock falls 3%; Rakesh Gangwal likely seller

Shares of InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, parent of low-cost airline IndiGo, dropped nearly 3% in trade on Thursday, August 29, after a huge block deal was executed on the stock counter.

Data on exchanges showed that around 2.3 crore shares of InterGlobe Aviation, equivalent to a 6% stake in the company, changed hands at a floor price of ₹4,760 apiece. This translated into a total deal size of ₹11,000 crore.

The floor price of the deal was at a 2% discount to IndiGo’s previous close of ₹4,859.85 per share on the NSE on Wednesday. Consequently, IndiGo shares dropped as much as 2.8% in the opening trade on Thursday to hit an intraday low of ₹4,725 apiece.

Though the buyers and sellers in the deal were not immediately known, media reports suggested that IndiGo’s co-founder Rakesh Gangwal was planning to reduce his stake further in the airline.

According to reports, Gangwal was planning to offload IndiGo shares worth ₹10,300 crore to exit the airline in individual capacity.

IndiGo’s shareholding data as of the end of the June quarter shows that Gangwal personally owned 5.89% of the airline, while Gangwal-backed promoter group held another 19.38% stake in the company.

Gangwal resigned from InterGlobe Aviation's Board of Directors in February 2022 and announced that he would gradually reduce his stake in the airline over a five-year period.

Before stepping down in 2022, Gangwal and his family held a 36.61% stake in IndiGo, while another co-founder, Rahul Bhatia, and his family owned nearly 37.8%. Gangwal reportedly had a fallout with Bhatia in 2019 over the airline's operations and consequently started cutting his stake in the company.

Gangwal first sold the stake in September 2022 when his family sold 2.8% of the airline for ₹2,000 crore. This was followed by another stake sale in February 2023, when the family sold an additional 4% of the company for ₹2,900 crore. A few months later, Rakesh Gangwal’s wife, Shobha Gangwal offloaded a nearly 3% stake she held in IndiGo for nearly ₹2,802 crore in August 2023.

Shares of InterGlobe Aviation were trading 1.34% lower at ₹4,794.05 apiece at 9:47 am.