IndiGo promoter Rakesh Gangwal's family trust on Thursday sold a 1.3 per cent stake in the country's largest airline for Rs 2,933 crore through open market transactions, cumulatively offloading shares worth Rs 14,497 crore so far this year. With the latest sale, the cumulative divestment by Rakesh Gangwal, along with his wife Shobha Gangwal and their family trust -- the Chinkerpoo Family Trust -- stood at Rs 39,532.79 crore, translating to around $4.51 billion.
InterGlobe Aviation promoter Rakesh Gangwal and his family trust on Tuesday sold a 5.7 per cent stake in the airline for about Rs 11,385 crore ($1.33 billion) through a block deal, according to sources. Apart from Gangwal, the Chinkerpoo Family Trust, whose trustees are Shobha Gangwal and JP Morgan Trust Company of Delaware, has also participated in the transaction for divesting its stake in IndiGo, the country's largest airline, the sources said.
InterGlobe Aviation's promoter Rakesh Gangwal on Monday sold shares worth Rs 6,785 crore of the company through open market transactions. The co-founder of the company, which operates the country's largest airline IndiGo, offloaded 2.25 crore shares of IndiGo amounting to 5.83 per cent stake, according to bulk deal data on BSE.
On February 19, India's largest private low-fare airline IndiGo announced the resignation of one of the two founders, Rakesh Gangwal, from the airline's board and his intentions of offloading his stake in the airline over the next five years. The announcement came on a Friday, giving the stock markets the weekend to absorb the news but the markets registered a tepid response on Monday's opening. In contrast, in July 2019, when the fight between the two founders and erstwhile friends first became public, the markets reacted savagely. The IndiGo scrip at the time fell 19 per cent, wiping out millions of rupees of shareholder wealth before bouncing back. For readers who may be hazy on the details of the dispute, here is the context.
Gangwal said he will not vote in favour of resolutions that intend to expand the size of the board to 10 members. Gangwal wants a seven-member board.
The feud between Gangwal and Bhatia came into the public after the former, in July, wrote to markets regulator Sebi seeking its intervention to address alleged corporate governance lapses at the company.
Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal - the founders of IndiGo - will possibly face each other with deep mistrust, which the board chairman, M Damodaran, will attempt to defuse.
The EGM would discuss deleting various Articles pertaining to transfer and acquisition of the company's shares, including 'Right of First Refusal' and ' Tag Along Right', in the company's Articles of Association.
Rakesh Gangwal had raised concerns that various RPTs involving Bhatia's InterGlobe Enterprises Group were executed without seeking the audit committee's approval and without seeking competitive bids from third parties.
IndiGo promoter Rakesh Gangwal has written a letter to markets regulator Sebi flagging governance issues at the company and has accused fellow co-founder Rahul Bhatia and his firms of indulging in questionable related-party transactions.
IndiGo has been facing a probe by Sebi ever since a public spat came to light between two founders of the airline, including over certain related party transactions involving one of the warring promoters.
InterGlobe Aviation, the parent of the country's largest airline IndiGo, will convene a shareholders' meeting on December 30 to amend the company's Articles of Association (AoA) following a joint request from its promoters. The promoters -- Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal -- together with their related entities and individuals own 77.4 per cent stake in InterGlobe Aviation. In a regulatory filing on Monday, the company said it will convene an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on December 30 to amend the AoA to remove restrictions on transfer of shares by the promoters.
Some years ago, Rakesh Gangwal reportedly said his relationship with Rahul Bhatia evolved in an amazing friendship, which he termed 'blind trust'. The question is whether that is under scrutiny now.
The genesis of the arbitration lies in a bitter public battle that began in July when Rakesh Gangwal wrote to capital market regulator Sebi alleging lack of corporate governance in the company. He alleged that Rahul Bhatia, who holds controlling power of the company, had used it to execute questionable related-party transactions.
Rakesh Gangwal's holding is considered FDI even though the majority stake in Caelum is held by NRIs
The much-awaited offer is also seen as a test case for revival of big-ticket sales in the primary market.
InterGlobe Enterprises Ltd on Thursday announced its plans to launch IndiGo, its nation-wide low-cost airline venture.
IndiGo was set up in 2006 by businessman Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, a former CEO for US Airways Group.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board on Friday gave conditional approval to the proposal of InterGlobe Aviation which would pave the way for fresh foreign direct investment in private air carrier IndiGo.
India's aviation industry could return to profitability in 2023-24 for the first time since the pandemic. The industry may pare aggregated net loss by 75-80 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to between Rs 3,500 crore and Rs 4,500 crore in 2022-23 (FY23), compared with Rs 17,500 crore of net losses in 2021-22 (FY22). A combination of recovery in passenger volumes and easing cost pressures due to stable fuel and foreign exchange (forex) costs could spark a turnaround. CRISIL says domestic and international passenger traffic recovered to 90 per cent and 98 per cent, respectively, of pre-pandemic traffic (2019-20, or FY20), in April-December 2022, compared with April-December 2019.
The seven Indian-Americans are cybersecurity firm ZScaler CEO Jay Chaudhry, founder and chairman of Symphony Technology Group Romesh Wadhwani, cofounder and CEO of online home goods retailer Wayfair Niraj Shah, Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla, managing partner of Sherpalo Ventures Kavitark Ram Shriram, Airline veteran Rakesh Gangwal and Workday CEO and co-founder Aneel Bhusri.
Under the new policy, external advice would be sought for related party transactions that are worth over Rs 2 crore and bidding process would be mandatory for any such contract.
Ghosh said the Tata Trusts Cancer Care Initiative is one of the largest health care programmes in the world
Move aimed at giving more headroom to foreign investors.
At the heart of the strategy is the basic fundamental of keeping costs for long-haul flights low.
Currently, there are related party transactions in four areas -- real estate leased to IGAL, simulator training facilities, General Sales Agreements (GSAs) for limited foreign markets and crew accommodation at Accor Hotels, the IGE statement said. Citing unaudited numbers for 2018-19, the statement said the related party transactions in the four areas accounted for Rs 150.12 crore or 0.53 per cent of IGAL's consolidated turnover.
While the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur may have attracted among the highest donations by an individual (former student and IndiGo Airlines co-founder Rakesh Gangwal) at Rs 100 crore last week, IITs have largely seen such contributions rise over recent years, despite the Covid pandemic. According to Mahesh Panchagnula, dean, Alumni and Corporate Relations, IIT Madras, in the last five years, the premier institute has raised more than Rs 135 crore under the endowment category of education alone. Despite the pandemic, there has been an increasing trend in endowment funding received at IIT Madras, with an average increase of about 20 per cent year-on-year across the last five years.
At Rs 919 crore, InterGlobe Aviation, the parent firm of low-cost airline IndiGo, posted its best-ever fourth quarterly net profit in the January-to-March quarter (Q4) of financial year 2022-23 (FY23). The bottom-line, however, was lower than the Street's expectations where estimates ranged from Rs 1,160 crore to Rs 2,180 crore. On the bourses, shares of IndiGo have added just 30 paise (0.01 per cent) since the announcement of the Q4-FY23 results on May 18.
The bookings of tickets under the four-day "festive sale" offer have begun from Monday for the travel period from September 18, 2018 to March 30, 2019, IndiGo said.
Analysts have questioned the Aditya Ghosh-led company's negative net worth due to a huge dividend payout ahead of an IPO.
Whatever the final outcome of this unhappy episode, one thing is clear: a glass once cracked cannot be fixed. The trust is gone forever and the relationship between two old friends lies in tatters. For now, IndiGo, the airline, will have to learn to soar with two angry and distracted commanders, says Anjuli Bhargava.
IndiGo which has close to 40 per cent market share, at present has 129 aircraft and operates 883 daily flights to 44 destinations. It also has around 400 aircraft on order.
Talks gain ground of strategic stake sale to foreign investor.
While most of these commanders quit the airline for better prospects, some of them also parted ways due to the work culture
It is clear that foreign airlines have realised the growth possibilities of the Indian aviation sector and are keenly interested, the minister said.
IndiGo, which has grown rapidly to become India's biggest airline by market share, has now ordered 530 A320 family planes from Airbus, the planemaker said in a statement.
Indigo continued its market leadership ferrying 5.77 million passengers in the month, followed by rival Spicejet with 1.86 million, and Air India carrying 1.55 million passengers. Goair, AirAsia India and Vistara transported 1.33 million, 7.72 lakh and 6.48 lakh passengers, respectively.
IndiGo has previously placed orders for 100 A320s and 180 A320neo planes.
IndiGo had debt of Rs 3,912 crore at end of the June quarter.