Adani Enterprises Ltd (NSE: ADANIENT) Q3 2026 Earnings Call dated Feb. 03, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Robbie Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Mohit Kumar — Analyst
Mahesh Patil — Analyst
Manish Somaiya — Analyst
Prateek Kumar — Analyst
Dhananjay Mishra — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Adani Enterprises Limited Q3 and FY26 Earning Conference Call hosted by ICICI Securities Limited. [Operatr Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Mohit Kumar — Analyst
Thanks, Danish. Good evening. On behalf of ICICI Securities would like to welcome you on the earnings call of Adani Enterprises Limited for Q3 FY26. Today, we have with us from the senior management Mr. Robbie Singh, Chief Financial Officer, Adani Enterprise Limited; Mr. Rajesh Poddar, Chief Financial Officer, Adani Airport Holdings Limited; Mr. Manan Vakharia, Head of Finance, Adani Enterprises; and Mr. Jitendra Khyalia, Investor Relations, Adani Enterprises. We’ll start with a brief opening remarks, which will be followed by Q&A.
Thank you and over to you, sir.
Robbie Singh — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you so much, Mohit. Welcome. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for Adani Enterprise earning call. As you all know now, AEL’s portfolio is categorized into our incubating portfolio spread across energy utilities, transport logistics and our established businesses, which is traditional mining, trading and now metals. Straight off, I’m very pleased to share with you all that Adani Solar which is part of Adani New Industries was recognized as world’s top 10 solar manufacturers. It’s the only Indian company in the top 10 in the world. This feat was achieved on the back of more than 15 gigawatt cumulative shipments, excellent vertical integration and maintaining a high capacity utilization.
Furthermore, over the last nine months, as you have seen in the various press release and announcements over the period of time, our aerospace, technology and defense business is taking shape. You would have seen two recent announcements on the development of regional civilian transport with Embraer and helicopter ecosystem within India with Leonardo. Over the coming few years, we will continue to inform the market on the development in the aerospace, technology and defense area. And now that business has taken certain shape, we will also — from mid this year, we have a section in it to update you on the status of that business as we go forward. In addition to defense, we’ve also set up Adani’s Global Capability Center within AEL, GCC, which we call Adani Capability Center. And over the coming period, you would see additional development in that space including and not limited to the development of activities within GCC, which pertain to artificial intelligence and the changeover into agentic workforce model.
Now coming back to this quarter, the key aspect has been the of project execution and operations for AEL. During the quarter gone, Adani Airport commissioned Navi Mumbai Airport and also integrated new terminal at Guwahati. The Navi Mumbai Airport is of immense strategic importance for Mumbai as a second airport and for Adani Airports, this is a significant addition to its regulatory asset base. The road business completed two more HAM projects, takes the operational road projects to nine.
More importantly though, the largest road project that we have in the portfolio which is Ganga Expressway is set to go live in this quarter. Ganga Expressway is roughly INR18,000 crores asset and is a traffic risk project. So it will add significantly to Adani Roads revenue and EBITDA. In ANIL module sales continue to track over 1 gigawatt per quarter despite the turbulence in global markets. As we had flagged in last month, there’s a small variation on realization you have, but nevertheless, the robustness of the business continues. The wind division has started shipping the 3.3 megawatt wind turbine.
On to financial performance. In the coming period, first, AEL will unlock EBITDA from Navi Mumbai, Kutch Copper and Ganga Expressway. Post stabilization, these three assets are expected to add well over INR3,000 crores to EBITDA. The consolidated results for nine months with total income at INR69,756 crores, EBITDA at INR11,985 crores and profit before tax at INR3,581 crores. This excludes one off gain on sale of assets of INR9,215 crores. Incubating businesses had a 7% year-on-year and now the EBITDA at INR8,224 crores.
On capital management, positioning AEL’s balance sheet for the next phase of growth. We completed the rights issue raising INR24,930 crores. Additionally, in January, we also further issued INR1,000 crores of NCDs. This was third in series of NCDs. Now as a showcase given the scale of airport business which is now already tracking over INR5,200 crores of EBITDA annually, this is without counting Navi Mumbai’s assets that will come online this year. The airport now contributes about 23% to India’s passenger traffic and roughly 29% of their cargo volumes. This just underscores the key scale and strategic importance that this asset represents to India and its aviation industry.
Key financial and operational performance for the last nine months. Passenger traffic tracks at about 71 million passengers, which is close to we expect around to number just short of 100 million for the year. Income is up 31% to INR9,652 crores and EBITDA has already surpassed the full year ’25 EBITDA and for the nine months is at INR3,724 crores. As I mentioned before, on 25 December 2025, greenfield Navi Mumibai Airport commenced operations, which we expect will meaningfully change the overall financial performance of Adani Airports going forward. It’s a regulatory asset base provisionally in the high-teens and the expected rate of return on assets of this type is in the range of 12% to 14%.
On the strategic front, Adani Airports acquired 100% stake in AGHPort Aviation Services. This acquisition provides Adani Airports with full operational control and strengthen our presence in the airport ground handling. Overall, these strong operating metrics, strategic initiatives and infrastructure additions position Adani Airport for sustained growth and value creation over the years ahead. Within our core traditional businesses, we have a portfolio of 17 MDO service agreements with a peak capacity of 143 million tons per annum.
We are currently operating at a run rate of 45 million tons from six contracts, which is approximately 31% of the potential of this business. The six operating contracts which are currently operating at 45 million tons have a notional capacity of 63 million tons. So the additional and further ramp up in this business will continue. During the nine months, the dispatch volume of the business is up 14% to 33.3 million tons and revenue is up 29% and consequently, EBITDA is up 29% to INR14,24 crores. Our integrated resource management portfolio, the volume should at 35.3 million with an EBITDA of INR2,069 crores.
With this, we will end our initial briefing and we are open for questions. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you so much, sir. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mahesh from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Mahesh Patil
Yeah. Hi, sir. Sir, my first question is on the defense side. Is it possible to help with the top line and the investment we have done till date in defense?
Robbie Singh
As I said, I think we will — thank you for the question. We will update on defense [Technical Issues].
Operator
I’m sorry to interrupt you sir, but there is a disturbance from your line.
Robbie Singh
I said on the defense side, we will update fully as a segment in detail from the first half of next year, so post the September results.
Mahesh Patil
Okay. And sir, on the 6 gigawatt cell and module line, when do we expect the commissioning of this line?
Robbie Singh
The new lines would be expected to be ready by 30 September this year.
Mahesh Patil
Okay. And sir, on the gains that we have booked in this quarter, what is the tax impact for the gain?
Robbie Singh
It will be taxed at 15%.
Mahesh Patil
Okay. And sir, lastly, on the Airport business side, so can you help us with the commission assets in the last 12 months in our Airport business?
Robbie Singh
Can you please repeat the question?
Mahesh Patil
The assets commissioned in the Airports business over the last 12 months.
Robbie Singh
There are no commissioning as such on Airports. Airports, the only asset we added was Navi Mumbai Airport.
Mahesh Patil
[Speech Overlap] Okay. And sir, for this Navi Mumbai Airport, right, for FY27, aero and non-aero side, how one should model for this? And related question is do you expect losses in the interim till the traffic picks up in this airport?
Robbie Singh
No. Airport is a regulatory asset. So there is no question of any losses. On the air side, the way to model it is to take the regulatory asset base. Provisionally, it would be high-teens in fact close to INR20,000 crores. And on the regulatory asset, the weighted average rate of return is expected to be around 12% to 14% and that return is calculated in the following manner. The RAB works in the following way. If you take the operating cost efficiently incurred, then capital return, which is depreciation and amortization, then weighted average cost of capital, plus notional tax to be paid will give rate of return on the regulatory asset. Tax obviously gets paid. Cost goes into running of the airport and what you are left with is a small capital return plus the rate of return on the asset. So on a regulatory asset, until and unless there is a serious issue, there is not a question of a loss.
Mahesh Patil
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Manish Somaiya from Centrum. Please go ahead.
Manish Somaiya
Thank you for taking my questions. Good afternoon. Good evening. I just had a question on the airport business. I see that the growth slowed from the second quarter to the third quarter. Maybe if you can just talk about that and then also just touch on when we should start seeing any improvements in the integrated resource management mining, some of the legacy businesses which obviously have been under pressure. So maybe if you can just give us some context around airports what happened in 3Q? Obviously, we all know about the Indigo fiasco. I don’t know if it had anything to do with that. And then also if you can just switch to the legacy businesses and help us understand when we should mark an improvement.
Robbie Singh
No. Actually, the growth is well over 30%. It’s just that the numbers that we mentioned, we have taken out a one-time element. There’s no specific issue regarding Indigo in relation to the Airports business. Even if you look at segmental part of airport, if you look at individual growth in relation to our presentation deck on page 23 of the presentation, you’ll see that it’s gone from INR1,100 crores on a quarterly basis to INR1,568 crores. And the underlying, even if you look at the non-aero, aero breakdowns, they’re all plus 25% growth and we expect that to continue in the Airports.
Manish Somaiya
Right. What I was looking at was the sequential growth. So when I look at the Airport revenues that you had in the second quarter, it had year-over-year growth of 43%. We’re at 32%. Of course, we’re dealing with perhaps a law of large numbers as growth increases, the growth rate will come down. But again, I’m just going to reconcile if there’s anything we should take away from the sequential portion, the 42% in 2Q ’26 versus 32% in 3Q?
Robbie Singh
No. I think what you will see is that actually that number will again accelerate only because it’s a timing of various accounting of regulatory assets. So as the regulatory assets kick in, you will see that you will have the revenue from those regulatory assets come in at different times. And there can be small changes in terms of mid-period determination of regulatory rate of return because currently, aero is still a big part of the portfolio. And so you can see some of those changes because various regulatory assets come online at different times. So for example, the determination, if you look at the effective date of regulatory determinations, the periods are different. So somewhere where we filed a mid review, it’s in December and so on and so forth. So some we have filed in January this year itself.
So those assets will make a difference, but we don’t see overall. You can have at a very large number like 40% growth number where the growth will moderate to some degree. It’s not likely that a 40% growth continues at 40%, but we will have jumps. Mumbai Airport itself will add on a regulatory basis a regulatory aero side EBITDA itself once we fully account for the timing difference, but on a normalized run rate basis of about just over INR2,000 crores to the EBITDA line itself against our current EBITDA of around — annualized EBITDA of around INR5,200 crores. So just one asset will add about 40%.
Manish Somaiya
Right. And then switching to the legacy businesses. Maybe if you can just help us understand the pluses and minuses of what’s going on in those businesses?
Robbie Singh
The main thing there is that, as you know, that we flagged it last time also a slight delay in the ramp-up of Kutch Copper. But we expect that now the full utilization should start over the next two to three months. So you’ll start seeing the numbers in the first quarter of the following financial year, which you haven’t seen an impact in this quarter. But I can share with you that we will see the numbers showing for Kutch Copper in the very first quarter of next financial year. And at various utilization rates, say, if it is 70%, then it will add roughly INR2,800 crores of EBITDA, if it is 80% around INR3,100 crores. And then there’s a further refining element to it where the EBITDA can go up by another 20%. But assuming that secondary refining is not there, then we are confident of utilization rates of between 70% to 80%. So that should give a high INR2,000 crores EBITDA addition in that business.
The main variability for us in that business always remains the Integrated Resource Management given the continuing sort of global/domestic interplays. And that part of the — that core IRM business overall this year is around 11% less than what we were last year. But as we’ve always flagged that there is an inherent, it’s a profitable business by itself, but there is an inherent variation, fluctuation in that business by the very nature. Otherwise, our MDO business is on track. It’s grown to 25% odd. In its current contract, it has a capacity to grow by another 25%. And then from where we are because of the existing contract that has not yet activated, it has got a growth potential of another 31%. So we expect that business to keep ramping up. And as MDO and mining itself become a bigger part and metals become a bigger part of this business. The variability element that is now outsized because of the IRM being a bigger EBITDA contributor to the business will become less and less. So we expect the variability itself as a percentage to decline as we go forward.
Manish Somaiya
Okay. And if you can just touch on the data center partnership with Google. I believe on the last call, we had talked about the partnership. And I think you had mentioned that you would give more details around spending and other metrics hopefully on this call?
Robbie Singh
It’s a little bit too early at this point. Just to give you an idea, we are just currently working through with the relevant agreements and so there’s nothing that we can share which will be complete. And naturally, we have to also work jointly with the counterparty in that case. But we expect to have a much clearer rollout and take up planning from the likes of Google and other partners. There are others also. Probably I think given their timelines and what we are aware of, probably say it’s about another quarter to four months away before we will be able to publicly share the rollout plans.
Manish Somaiya
Okay. That’s helpful. And then just lastly, you’ve been very busy on the capital markets front. If you can just give us a sense of what else we should be expecting? And then I think what would be helpful is to have a pro forma capital structure. I think you gave the figures for 12/31, but just to understand even with the current financing that was just completed in the last week or so, if you can just give us a sense of what the debt stack looks like at this point?
Robbie Singh
Yes, we will actually provide a lot more detail, but just basically, our incremental total external debt now is roughly around over 36 — just over INR36,000 crores that is allocated to our incubating businesses. And overall, just to give you a basic long-term debt number, the gross long-term debt is about INR78,000 crores. So give or take just under $9 billion. We have still some shareholder loan outstanding of about just under $2 billion. So the external debt of that would be INR62,000 crores. So INR78,000 crores being the total debt, INR16,000 crores being shareholder loans giving us a total external debt of about INR62,000 crores. Of this INR62,000 crores, majority, INR37,000 crores is just allocated to the — is actually Airports, Roads, Kutch Copper and the current PVC under construction. So what we can do is we can give you a pro forma also post results. We can actually — we’ll note down the question. We’ll provide that publicly and we can put it on the website itself.
Manish Somaiya
Okay. No, that will be super helpful just so that we have a better sense of what we should have in our models? But thank you so much for all the answers.
Robbie Singh
Look at debt, you can always look at Page 26. But if you have anything further, you can please reach out. We will put further details if required.
Manish Somaiya
Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Prateek Kumar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Prateek Kumar
Yeah. Good evening sir. I have a few questions. Firstly, can you discuss like this Airport segment EBITDA grew like 40% year-on- year. There’s a mention of non-recurring items also in that number related to lease income. What is that number? And…
Robbie Singh
INR220 crores, one-off.
Prateek Kumar
INR220 crores. And this will be related to leasing what?
Robbie Singh
Non-recurring — just one second. This is largely for the specialist hangar development and advance received against that. So that’s how it gets accounted for.
Prateek Kumar
Okay. So next quarter, we will have like, let’s say, INR220 crores lesser than current quarter plus additional business from the new airport, which is Navi Mumbai Airport as a new run rate?
Robbie Singh
Correct.
Prateek Kumar
Right. Also on Navi Mumbai Airport like we started like 25 December in terms of ATMs and daily flights and probably it will move to like a 24-hour airport sooner. Earlier, we were doing like I think in the start, 5,000 passengers per day. How has the run rate of passengers improved because there seems to be like a challenge on constrained capacity environment at this point? And how are you looking at FY ’27 in terms of volumes for Mumbai and Navi Mumbai combined airports?
Robbie Singh
I think actually the volume details and movement we will confirm and we’ll provide between the two airports as part of our annual results. But just to give you an idea, the second phase construction will start just after the monsoons this year itself, 2026. Already the slots are fully taken up by the airlines at Navi Mumbai Airport. So in fact, Phase 2 construction will start. But in terms of the overall system-wide traffic impacts and everything, we will provide much more detailed and clear outlines as part of the annual results and because we have a couple of steps to do in relation to capitalization of the asset, in relation to the provision of RAB, which we will do this quarter.
Prateek Kumar
Okay. And just to revisit, are you expecting some shift of traffic from Mumbai to Navi Mumbai Airport here? And also a related question, I know that we had like pushed out the Mumbai Airport renovation of Terminal 1 to later date. Is there any update on that?
Robbie Singh
No, not on that. Our first priority is to stabilize the two airport operations from operations perspective, which we expect to do and start the second phase construction at Navi Mumbai and then we will look at Terminal 1 post that.
Prateek Kumar
Moving on to other segment, like Road segment has been doing EBITDA of like INR1,500 crores to INR2,000 crores in like past two years. With the commissioning of Ganga Expressway soon, how do we expect this business to ramp up in FY ’27?
Robbie Singh
Basically, Ganga Expressway should just double the size of EBITDA of this business, which is currently INR1,500 crores EBITDA that is sort of run rate. There are two new assets are also coming in HAM, but we’ll be closer to INR3,000 crores on that.
Prateek Kumar
Sure. And you talked about Adani GCC. Is this for like internal businesses of the Adani Group? And is this going to be a meaningful revenue or profit contributor to the business or just a support business for the group? And what are we — I mean you talked about AI and agnetic AI, we are like looking to develop capability.
Robbie Singh
Yeah. So it is currently internal to the group and because it will become the lab through which the agentic AI will get deployed across the group.
Prateek Kumar
Okay. And last question on your coal to PVC timelines, can you discuss where is that project? How much is the capital employed till now? What is the total project CapEx and the timeline?
Robbie Singh
I think from a revenue perspective, we should look at calendar year ’28 and completion point of view, base completion towards end of this year and then ramp up, which will continue in that business, you can estimate roughly six to nine months. Obviously, we’ll provide a lot more detail closer to the event. But currently, our CapEx that has already been expensed on that business is in the vicinity of about INR9,000 crores, so just over a third of the CapEx.
Prateek Kumar
Sorry, one last question on your total CapEx target for FY ’26 and how much has been incurred till — in first nine months?
Robbie Singh
So our total target that we had outlined was roughly INR36,000 crores and we have already done just about INR25,200 crores.
Prateek Kumar
Thank you, sir. These are my questions.
Operator
Thank you so much. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Dhananjay Mishra from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead.
Dhananjay Mishra
Hello, sir. Sir, are we expecting any contribution from copper side in Q4 as well or it will only start from Q1 next year.
Robbie Singh
Q1.
Dhananjay Mishra
Okay, sir. And Ganga Expressway, this provisional completion certificate will come in next two months itself?
Robbie Singh
It will come in the next month itself.
Dhananjay Mishra
Okay. So I mean, in terms of toll collection and all, it will start from Q1 only, not material in Q4?
Robbie Singh
Not material at all in Q4.
Dhananjay Mishra
Okay. And just lastly, the 6 gigawatt cell and module capacity, which is going to be completed by June as your last timeline. So what is the CapEx required for this?
Robbie Singh
The total CapEx for this project is around INR10,000 crores and it is on schedule completion. So we expect it to be ready and producing by September 2026.
Dhananjay Mishra
And do we have enough order once we have this 10 gigawatt capacity because currently, run rate is about 4 GW. So for at least FY ’27…
Robbie Singh
It depends on capacity only, we have enough orders.
Dhananjay Mishra
Okay. So we can supply — once we have the capacity, run rate could be 2,000 megawatts per quarter?
Robbie Singh
Yes.
Dhananjay Mishra
Thanks. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments. Thank you, and over to you.
Robbie Singh
So thank you so much. And Mohit, thank you so much for organizing the call and everyone who participated. And if there’s any further questions, you please reach out to the team, our investor relations team and they will respond. And we’ve noted one question which we will — based on Cantos which we’ll put on the website and you can always look at that answer on that question. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]