Adani Group to sport a new-look soon

Gautam Adani-promoted Adani Group has decided to don a new corporate identity soon and has roped in England-based brand consultancy Wolff Olins to do the job. The Adani Group is into ports, power, coal mining, and agri business apart from an SEZ and a shipping-line, called Adani Shipping, with six vessels.

We'll soon have a new corporate identity and tagline. The Dubai office of the England-based creative agency Wolff Olins has been mandated to work on this image makeover," Adani Power Chief Executive Ravi Sharma told PTI.

However, he refused to give a time-frame for the brand makeover and the investment details. He also refused to share whether the company will have a new name after the makeover.

A part of the Omnicom Group since 2001, Wolff Olins was set up in 1965 and is a brand consultancy and creative agency with offices in London, New York and Dubai and employs 150 designers, strategists and account managers.

Meanwhile, the group's flagship Mundra Port and SEZ has renamed itself as Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone after an extra-ordinary general body meeting of its shareholders accepted the proposal on December 31.

The group operates ports at Mundra, Dahej, Hazira (all in Gujarat), coal berths in Goa and Visakhapatnam, and a coal terminal in Abbot Point in Australia and is investing around Rs 20,6700 crore in these projects. But its bids for the port projects in Chennai and Vizhinjam were recently rejected.

But despite these reversals, Group Chairman Gautam Adani has drawn up an ambitious growth plan for 2020, which has the group targeting to mine as much as 200 mt coal, achieve a cargo handling capacity of 200 mt, produce 20,000-mw electricity and acquire 20 large ships, all by 2020.

"The shipping venture will see us investing about $1.4 billion in 14 ships by 2020, Mudra Port & SEZ Director Rajeev Sinha told PTI.

According to company insiders, Adani has a fetish for the number 20 and hence the 2020 businesses target.

When contacted, Sinha said, "We also read from media that the Home Ministry has denied us security clearance. We are yet to hear from the ministry."

In fact, the group's port business received two severe setbacks in as many weeks. On December 30, the Chennai Port rejected its Rs 3,700-crore bid for a mega container terminal project, citing very low revenue share offer (5%), despite being the sole bidder.

The second setback came within the next week when the Union Home Ministry denied security clearance to participate as the operator of the Rs 7,800-crore Vizhinjam Port last week, this is despite fact it had for ok from defence and foreign ministries.

Both these development have raised questionmarks about Adani's ability to raise his cargo-handling capacity to 200 mt by 2020 from 75 mt now.

The Vizhinjam denial is the third security clearance refusal to the port in the recent past. Since November, 2010, Adani Ports has been denied security clearance by the Union Home Ministry to bid for projects such as the fourth container terminal at the JNPT, a project to mechanise iron ore loading facilities at the Vizag Port and now the Vizhinjam Port.

It can be recalled that the group took the government to court after it was refused permission to bid for the fourth container terminal at JNPT in 2011. But the Bombay high court ordered the Group to withdraw the plea and directed it to move the Shipping Ministry to resolve the issue.

The only saving grace was its successful bid for the Kandla Port in December to build a cargo-handling project, as it was granted the Home Ministry clearance, given before November, 2010.

Its power vertical is also not in the pink of health, as it had to late December shelve execution of its three projects, with a combined capacity of 6,500 mw, for a want of coal supply.

"We have decided to go slow with our three power projects -- Chhindwara in MP and Dahej and Bhadreshwar in Gujarat--for want of coal linkages, which together have a capacity of 6,500 mw," Adani Power chief executive Ravi Sharma had said.

Adani Power, which is the largest coal-based private utility in the country, has an installed capacity of 3,300 mw in Mundra in Gujarat and plans to add another 6,000 mw by March, 2012 and 10,000 mw by 2013, Sharma had said. The company has set a target of having a capacity of 20,000 mw by 2020.

Last year, the Group had acquired stakes in Australia's Galilee coal mines for $2.7 billion and Abbot Point Coal Terminal for $2 billion, thus joining a growing number of domestic companies acquiring overseas mining assets. Last week, the company had commissioned a 40-mw solar power project in Gujarat and has plans to expand the solar capacity to 100 mw.