IndiGo: Gangwals may sell 5.6% in IndiGo for $450mn

NEW DELHI: IndiGo co-founder Rakesh Gangwal‘s family is likely to sell 5.6% stake in the airline’s holding company InterGlobe Aviation (IGA) through a block deal worth up to $450 million on Wednesday, sources said. Gangwals currently hold 29.7% stake in the airline.

Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs will reportedly be conducting the block sale of over 1.5 crore shares at Rs 2,400 apiece – a 5.8% discount from Monday’s closing of Rs 2,548 on the BSE. IndiGo did not offer comments till the time of going to press.
Last February, following years of bitter fallout with IndiGo co-founder and now MD Rahul Bhatia, Gangwal had resigned as director of IGA and announced selling his group’s stake over five years. At that time, Bhatia and Gangwal groups collectively held 74.4% stake in the airline almost equally. Since then, the Gangwal group has reduced its stake from 36.7% (before it started selling stakes) to 29.7% (BSE data showed) at the end of this June. The two promoter groups collectively had 67.7% stake in IndiGo as of June-end.

Not ruling out the possibility of returning to the IndiGo board in the future, Gangwal had last February given the reason for gradual stake dilution thus: “A gradual reduction of my stake should also allow me to benefit from some of the upside. Like any plan, future events may impact my current thinking… in the future, I shall consider participating again as a board member.”
Following Gangwal’s exit, Bhatia has put in place a new senior management team for future expansion, especially in the international skies. Bhatia placed its largest ever order for 500 single aisles with Airbus recently and now, the airline has 970 aircraft on order that will be delivered by 2035. IndiGo is likely to order a significant number of twin aisle Boeing 787 Dreamliners.