This all-cash deal at an enterprise value of €2.56 billion (about ₹27,200 crore) will give Adani Ports access to Evos' 6.3 million cubic metres of storage capacity at eight ports across the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Malta.

This all-cash deal at an enterprise value of €2.56 billion (about ₹27,200 crore) will give Adani Ports access to Evos' 6.3 million cubic metres of storage capacity at eight ports across the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Malta.

This all-cash deal at an enterprise value of €2.56 billion (about ₹27,200 crore) will give Adani Ports access to Evos' 6.3 million cubic metres of storage capacity at eight ports across the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Malta.

In a major step towards growing its presence abroad, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) on Thursday agreed to acquire a 100 per cent stake in the Dutch firm Evos B.V. (Evos) from Igneo Infrastructure Partners.

Evos is Europe's second-largest independent liquid storage operator with 6.3 million cubic metres of storage capacity at eight ports across the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Malta.

What makes the proposed transaction significant is that it is an all-cash deal at an enterprise value of €2.56 billion (about ₹27,200 crore). It values Evos at an equity value of €1.18 billion, which implies an acquisition multiple of 11.7 times the EV/EBITDA figure for CY 2025.

For CY 2025, Evos' revenue stood at €392 million, while EBITDA amounted to €219 million respectively (which comes to a 56 per cent EBITDA margin). The pro forma net debt-to-EBITDA for the combined entity stands at 2.76x (based on APSEZ's FY 2026 and Evos' CY 2025 financials) and is expected to be around 2.5x by FY 2027.

The transaction will be funded via debt and is subject to regulatory and other approvals, as well as a works council consultation.

More importantly, it is this 56 per cent EBITDA margin that Adani Ports eyes as a means to boost its profit margins, given that the port operator's International Ports' margin stood at 44.8 per cent in H1 FY 2027.

Perhaps the most important point is what the proposed new acquisition can do for Adani Ports, beyond serving as a source of stable cash flows: the acquisition gives it access to a varied mix of conventional and futuristic fuels.

This includes gasoline, gasoil, marine fuels, jet fuel, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), biofuels, methanol and bioethanol.

This would put Adani Ports at the centre of the supply chains within the global energy transition ecosystem—not just the maritime-linked ones alone—and would also allow it to leverage Evos' diversified roster of Tier-1 customers, which includes global energy majors, leading industrial and chemical companies, and commodity traders.

In that regard, its long-term aim of scaling up to reach 1 billion metric tonnes per annum (1 BTPA) by 2030 also factors into these moves.

The proposed Evos move is now also the company's biggest such diversification of its portfolio, and comes two years after it purchased an 80 per cent stake in global Offshore Support Vessel (OSV) operator Astro Offshore in August 2024.

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The $185 million deal had not only promised to add value to Adani Ports' portfolio from the first year of the acquisition, but also paved the way for its push into ultra-deepwater operations this year.

This was done by means of a contract with Oceaneering International, a US-based engineering and applied technology company, to pursue specialised offshore and subsea opportunities in Europe.

Like the Evos deal promises to do, the Astro Offshore acquisition unlocked a whole new international revenue stream for Adani Ports, as Europe's markets for offshore maritime services, are not only demanding, but also offer high-value contracts.

After growing Astro Offshore's 28-ship fleet to 50 earlier this year, APSEZ has now set its sights on a 200-strong fleet—along with marine revenue of ₹6,000 crore and a planned capex of ₹13,000 crore—by FY 2030-31.