Essar Ports Limited, on Wednesday, announced that it was entering into a long-term strategic alliance with Port of Antwerp International (PAI) and an investment of around Rs.175 crore by PAI in Essar Ports.
PAI is the international investing arm of the Antwerp Port Authority, which is the port authority of the port of Antwerp, the second largest port in Europe handling 187 million metric tonnes of cargo in 2011, and a gateway to many European economies.
The Antwerp Port Authority and Essar Ports will collaborate in training and consultancy services, port planning, traffic flow, quality and productivity improvement and build a commercial relationship based on mutual business and investment preferences. Essar Ports and PAI will mutually assist in the growth in the volume of their businesses, according to an official statement issued here.
Marc Van Peel, president of the Antwerp Port Authority said his company would rely on Essar Ports for development of port activities in India, one of the strategic regions of our daughter company PAI. As a part of the strategic alliance agreement signed between the two, PAI has invested around Rs.175 crore in global depository shares (GDS) of Essar Ports at a price of Rs.100 per share underlying the GDS. These GDS would form about 4 per cent of the diluted equity share capital of Essar Ports. PAI's investment in Essar Ports is long-term and strategic in nature, focusing on the commercial relationship between the two companies and mutually enhancing the productivity, skill set and performance.
