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Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ) on Tuesday announced its results for the fourth quarter and year ended March 31, 2023.

"FY23 has been a stellar year for APSEZ in operational as well as financial performance. The company has overachieved against its highest-ever revenue and EBITDA guidance provided at the beginning of the year. Our strategy of geographical diversification, cargo mix diversification, and business model transition to a transport utility is enabling robust growth," Karan Adani, CEO and Whole Time Director of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, said.

Over the last 5 years, APSEZ's revenue and EBITDA have grown at a CAGR of 16-18 per cent, while the company's domestic market share jumped 800bps to 24 per cent in FY23. APSEZ did record investments of around Rs 27,000 crore in FY23, which includes six major acquisitions totalling around Rs 18,000 crore and organic capex of around Rs 9,000 crore.

These investments were primarily financed through internal accruals and the cash and cash equivalents held with the company. As a result, gross debt to fixed asset ratio has declined sharply from 80 per cent in FY19 to around 60 per cent in FY23. The investments made along with the five bid wins during the year, will enable APSEZ to achieve its targeted cargo volumes of 500 MMT in 2025 and speed up the transition of the business model to a transport utility, Karan Adani added.

With industry leading average turnaround time (TAT) for ships at 0.7 days, APSEZ has been a benchmark for other Indian ports and have driven the improvement in the TAT of major ports from 5 days in 2011 to 2 days currently.

APSEZ completed six acquisitions (Haifa Port Company, Gangavaram Port, Karaikal Port, IOTL, Ocean Sparkle, and ICD Tumb) during the year implying an investment of around to Rs 18,000 crore. The total capex during the year was around to Rs 9,000 crore.

Despite a record annual investment of around Rs 27,000 crore (highest ever in the company's lifetime), APSEZ has managed to maintain the net debt to EBITDA ratio at 3.1x (guided range of 3-3.5x). In April '23, APSEZ also announced the launch of the bond buyback programme. The first tranche of buyback of $130 Mn notes which are due in June '24 is already completed. More such buybacks are likely in the coming quarters.

A total of five bids were won during the year including two in ports business (mechanisation of Berth 2 at Haldia Port and greenfield construction of Tajpur Port) and three in logistics business (Loni ICD, Valvada ICD, and 70 agri silos with cumulative capacity of 2.8 MMT).

The promoters have pre-paid the fund-based loans raised through pledging of APSEZ shares, resulting in reduction of pledged shares to 4.66 per cent as on March 31, 2023 vs 17.31 per cent as on December 31, 2022.

For FY23, the APSEZ Board has recommended a dividend of Rs 5 per share, in line with its capital allocation policy. This implies a payout of around Rs 1,080 crore for the company.