Adani Group has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Air Works for INR 400 crores as a part of its growing defence portfolio. This acquisition is just one among the many that the Adani Group has purchased over the past few years. Air Works has six investors and received its first external funding from GTI Group and Punj Lloyd in 2007. All existing investors, including the Menon family, the founders of the group, will exit the company following the transaction.
Earlier this year, Air Works partnered with Mach Technik to expand line maintenance in DXB, but despite the expansion, the company was facing challenges such as increasing finance costs. According to sources, the company was in self-sustaining mode, during and post-pandemic.
With a pan-India presence across 27 cities, 6 MRO facilities and a robust workforce of over 6000 employees, the Air Works acquisition will give a solid base to the Adanis to venture into India's MRO market.
“The Indian MRO industry is expected to grow from $1.7 bn in 2021 to $4 bn by 2031, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.9% against the expected global CAGR of 5.6%. The company continues to build one-stop solutions for all aircraft-related services across India and South Asia,” the company quoted in its annual report.
Ashish Rajvanshi, CEO of Adani Defence & Aerospace said: “Given India’s growth trajectory and the government’s focus to network the nation through a massive mesh of air connectivity, it is inevitable that the primary growth of India’s airline and airport sector lies ahead of it. Therefore, the MRO sector has a crucial role to play in both the defence and civilian aerospace sectors. Add to this the ongoing modernisation programme to make India a large market for defence aircraft, and what emerges is one of the most exciting, comprehensive, scale and digital MRO services within the boundaries of the nation.”
D Anand Bhaskar, MD & CEO, of Air Works Group, said, “India has the potential to become the MRO hub for the region across defence and civil aircraft. It is a wonderful opportunity for Air Works and its employees to be subsumed under Adani Defence & Aerospace platform. The government’s policy measures and initiatives including the convergence of civil and defence MRO would create economies of scale and huge employment opportunities.”
Praising Air Works, Ashish continued: "Air Works has impeccable proven capabilities and over its 70-year aviation legacy has successfully delivered several India-first and industry-first projects. Combine this with the Adani Group's capabilities and what we get is an entity that truly represents what an Atmanirbhar Bharat in a critical sector should look like."
The Adani Group ventured into the aviation sector in 2019 by winning bids for six airports. In 2021, the group took over the management of Mumbai International Airport and Navi Mumbai airport. With this, the group handles more than 20% of the passenger traffic in India.