Adani Ports sold a 49% stake in Vizhinjam Port to MSC for $1.4 billion.
MSC will fund expansion, increasing Vizhinjam Port's capacity to 4.1 million TEUs.
Vizhinjam Port crossed 2 million TEUs within 18 months of operations
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone on Tuesday agreed to sell a 49% stake in its Vizhinjam transshipment port in Kerala to Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) for $1.4bn (₹13,225 crore). Terminal Investment, a unit of MSC, will pay $539mn upfront for the 49% stake in Adani Vizhinjam Port (AVPPL), a 100% subsidiary of Adani Ports.
Following the announcement, shares of Adani Ports rose 1% to ₹1,794.45 at 11 am on Tuesday. The stock has registered a gain of over a fifth since January.
1 June 2026
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Funding Port Expansion
The MSC unit will pay an additional $858mn by December 2028 as its share of the costs for a $1.75bn capacity expansion project at the port, an Adani Ports release stated.
The expansion will increase the port's capacity from 1.6mn standard containers (TEUs) to 4.1mn a year. The company has eventual plans to expand capacity to 5.7mn.
"I am delighted to expand APSEZ’s long-standing partnership with MSC to Vizhinjam, as we prepare for the port’s next leg of journey," Ashwani Gupta, Managing Director of Adani Ports, said. "I am confident that our association will deliver enhanced supply chain efficiencies at global scale and improve India’s access to key global mature and developing markets."
Strategic Global Ambitions
The partnership with the global shipping line is expected to help free cash for Adani Ports and predictably bring in more traffic, Adani Ports stated. As part of the collaboration, the Vizhinjam port will get better volume visibility and a faster ramp-up, Adani Ports stated.
The port will get a higher share of cargo from Bangladesh, which today largely goes through competing transshipment hubs in Southeast Asia, Adani Ports stated.
Transshipment ports are hubs of global shipping where containers from one ship are loaded onto another for forward journey, akin to how global airport hubs like Dubai work for human passengers.
Vizhinjam features a deep natural draft and sits close to global shipping corridors. That gives the facility the potential to become the first globally competitive transshipment port in India.
The world's top transshipment ports include Singapore, Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, Busan in South Korea, Tanger Med in Morocco and Shanghai in China. Singapore handles over 40mn containers a year.
Rapid Growth Milestones
In its first year of operations that ended December 2025, the port handled 1.3mn containers from 615 vessels. This made it the fastest Indian port to cross the 1-million-container mark.
The port crossed the 2-million-container milestone within 18 months of operations, and this month it handled its 1,000th vessel.
"Vizhinjam port has emerged as a premier transshipment hub and ramped up at an unprecedented pace, becoming the first Indian port to earn the unique distinction of crossing 2 million TEUs within 18 months of operations," Gupta said.
Following the announcement, the port is positioned to accelerate its capacity expansion to secure its status as a globally competitive transshipment hub.
