Business tycoon Adani explores partnership with Saudi Aramco
Adani Group has held preliminary talks on a range of potential cooperation and joint investment opportunities with Saudi Aramco and the country’s Public Investment Fund. The Adani group is reportedly exploring a tie-up with Saudi Aramco and the oil kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. Rather than investing cash, Gautam Adani seeks to invest with his shares, offering potential partners a stake in his group. It makes sense for companies like Adani to strike share-swapping deals before the switch by the world’s major central banks from ultra-loose monetary policy to inflation-killing hawkishness.
Gautam Adani-led Adani Group is exploring potential partnerships in Saudi Arabia, including the possibility of buying a stake in the world’s largest oil exporter Saudi Aramco. Gautam Adani is Asia’s second-richest person with an estimated net worth of about $90.5 billion.
While Adani is unlikely to shell out billions of dollars in cash for Aramco stock, at least in the short term, it could seek to link investment to a broader tie-up or asset swap deal. The Adani Group could team up with Aramco or subsidiaries like Sabic in areas such as renewable energy, crop nutrients, or chemicals, one of the people said. Adani may also offer the PIF, which is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the opportunity to invest in infrastructure in India. Deliberations are at an early stage, and Adani hasn’t made a decision on which form any potential cooperation could take.
A deal could help Aramco deepen relationships in one of the world’s fastest-growing energy consumers. The Saudi petroleum giant spent more than two years negotiating a potential $15 billion investment in the oil-to-chemicals unit of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., only for talks to be scrapped in November. Aramco said at the time it would continue to look at investing in India. Last month, the Saudi government transferred a 4% stake to PIF. The shares are now valued at about $89 billion based on Aramco’s Thursday closing price in Riyadh. PIF recently has kicked off discussions about how to monetise that holding as it seeks to raise funds for its ambitious investment goals. The PIF has since done several deals in India, buying stakes in Reliance’s retail business, wireless arm and fibre-optic network assets. The Indian conglomerate has also appointed Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who’s chairman of Aramco and governor of the PIF, to its board.
