Rival billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani have signed the pact for their first ever collaboration for a power project in Madhya Pradesh. Ambani’s firm Reliance has picked up 26 percent stake in Adani Power’s project in MP, signing a pact to use the plants’ 500 MW of electricity for captive use.
Reliance will pick up 5 crore equity shares in Mahan Energen Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Power Ltd, of face value ₹10 at par ( ₹50 crore) and will use 500 MW of generation capacity for captive use, the two firms said in separate stock exchange filings.
In its company filing, Adani Power said, “Mahan Energen Ltd (MEL), wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Power Ltd (APL), has entered into a 20-year long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) for 500 MW with Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), under the captive user policy as defined under the Electricity Rules, 2005.”
“In order to avail the benefit of this policy, RIL has to hold a 26 per cent ownership stake in the captive unit in proportion to the total capacity of the power plant. It will accordingly invest in 5 crore equity shares of MEL, aggregating to ₹50 crore for the proportionate ownership stake,” the filing further said.
Adani and Ambani, both hailing from Gujarat, have often been pitted against each other when it comes to business dynamics. The two have also been battling it out for the title of Asia’s richest person for several years now.
With Ambani’s interests spanning oil and gas to retail and telecom and Adani’s focus on infrastructure spanning sea ports to airports, coal and mining, they rarely crossed each other’s path except in the clean energy business where the two have announced multi-billion investments.
Adani has previously expressed his company’s aim to be the largest renewable energy producer in the world, while Ambani’s Reliance is building four gigafactories at Jamnagar in Gujarat — one each for solar panels, batteries, green hydrogen, and fuel cells.
The businessmen were also expected to clash during the auction of the 5G spectrum airwaves, but unlike Ambani, Adani ended up 400 MHz spectrum in the 26 GHz band, which is not for public networks.
(With inputs from PTI)
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