Adani plots expansion of overseas port empire after US funding
Karan Adani boasted that a newly inked $553 million US government financing deal toward a port terminal being developed by his family’s conglomerate was a “reaffirmation by the international community.”
The announcement marked a welcome reprieve for India’s Adani Group following a damaging short-seller attack and a number of corporate fraud allegations leveled against it this year. It also signaled Washington’s endorsement for the port empire owned by Karan’s father and billionaire Gautam Adani — seen as a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi — that would help curb China’s maritime influence in the Indian ocean.
Those waters account for more than one-third of the world’s bulk cargo traffic and two-thirds of oil shipments. Chakri Lokapriya, chief investment officer at TCG Asset Management Co. in Mumbai, called Adani’s port ambitions a “strategic” play, assisting India to counter China’s own string of ports in its backyard, stretching from Sri Lanka to Pakistan.
Now Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., seen as the conglomerate’s crown jewel, is eyeing further “opportunities in our neighboring countries,” Karan Adani, the operator’s chief executive officer, told Bloomberg News in the Sri Lankan capital. Those include potential ventures in Bangladesh, as well as East African and Southeast Asian nations, including Tanzania and Vietnam, adding to its existing Sri Lanka and Israel developments, he said.
In a world that’s “looking beyond China — it is indeed a Chinese-styled expansion by Adani,” said Sanjiv Bhasin, director at Mumbai-based IIFL Securities Ltd.
‘Long Game’
The US funding for the Adani-led West Container Terminal in Colombo via the Intentional Development Finance Corp. was a shot-in-the-arm after
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