Adani Enterprises on Friday said its wholly-owned subsidiary Adani Defence Systems and Technologies has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 50 per cent stake in General Aeronautics, which provides robotic drones and drone-based solutions for crop protection.
“Adani Defence Systems and Technologies Ltd shall leverage its military drone and AI/ML (artificial intelligence/ machine learning) capabilities and work with General Aeronautics for providing end-to-end solutions for the domestic agriculture sector,” Adani Enterprises said in a regulatory filing on Friday.
It is an all-cash deal and the acquisition is expected to be completed by July 31, it added.
According to research firm Research and Markets, the Indian drone industry has estimated that the country’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market will be worth USD 1.81 billion (or Rs 13,575 crore) by the financial year 2025-26. The Drone Federation of India estimates the sector to hit Rs 50,000 crore in five years.
General Aeronautics is an end-to-end Agri-platform solution provider, based out of Bengaluru, India and incorporated in 2016. It provides robotic drones and drone-based solutions for crop protection services, crop health, precision farming and yield monitoring using artificial intelligence and analytics for the agricultural sector.
Adani Defence Systems and Technologies specialises in the development and production of systems, including electronics warfare, avionics, training and simulation and radars. Adani Defence has established India’s first unmanned aerial vehicles manufacturing facility, India’s first private sector small arms manufacturing facility and is currently in process of setting up India’s first comprehensive aircraft MRO facility in Nagpur.
In 2019, Adani Defence Systems and Technologies had also acquired Alpha Design Technologies Pvt Ltd. Alpha Design Technologies provided Adani Defence and Aerospace a strong tier-1 capability for building a base for graduating to platform capabilities.
Adani Group’s flagship firm Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) posted a consolidated net profit attributable to owners at Rs 304.32 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2022. Its consolidated revenue grew 83.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021-22 to Rs 25,141.56 crore, compared with Rs 13,688.95 crore in the year-ago period, according to its filings with stock exchanges.
Shares of Adani Enterprises on Friday jumped 32.40 points, or 1.58 per cent, to close at Rs 2,080.10 apiece on the BSE.
Gautam Adani Speaks At Davos
Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland on Thursday, Adani Group Chairman and founder Gautam Adani said international alliances are built on slippery foundations of self-interest and India needs to step up and strengthen self-reliance across sectors — from vaccination to defence and semiconductors.
“Almost every leader I spoke to acknowledged, and some even explicitly stated, that a new and more sophisticated arms race may now be coming on. Alliances will form and re-form around defence agreements and many countries may prioritise defence manufacture and procurement as a non-negotiable aspect of self-reliance,” he said.
