The government is temporarily freezing the proposed sale of AAI’s stakes in the private joint ventures operating the airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
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Reason
The finance ministry has decided to defer for now the sale of the AAI’s residual stakes in these four joint ventures, the reason being that the valuations could be lower now.
State-owned Airport Authority of India’s (AAI) residual stakes in these airports were supposed to be sold under the government’s ambitious National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP).
National Monetisation Pipeline
The NMP has been developed by Niti Aayog, in consultation with infrastructure line ministries, based on the mandate for asset monetisation under Union Budget 2021-22.
It estimates aggregate monetisation potential of Rs 6 lakh crore through core assets of the central government over a four-year period from FY 2022 to FY 2025.
Stakeholding
The AAI holds 26 per cent stake each in joint ventures that operate Delhi and Mumbai airports.
And then 13 per cent shareholding each in the joint ventures that operate Hyderabad and Bangalore airports.
Under the NMP, a total of 25 airports and the AAI’s residual stakes in the four airport joint ventures have been considered.
Allocation
Overall value of these assets was estimated at Rs 20,782 crore for FY 2022-25.
Out of this, Rs 10,000 crore of monetisation value has been tentatively considered on account of divestment of AAI stake in private joint venture airports.
The same has been phased out equally over FY22 and FY23.
‘Multiple factors’
The NMP document that was released in August 2021 goes on to say, “It may be noted that the actual realisation from AAI stake sale will depend on multiple factors such as transaction timing, market conditions, investor appetite and transaction terms”.
The government is taking a market approach to determine the indicative value of AAI’s stake in the four private joint ventures.