Adani Acquires Stake in Trainman: Adani Enterprises, a company of Gautam Adani Group, has bought about a 30 per cent stake in Start Enterprises Private Limited (SEPL), a company related to railway ticket booking. SEPL is the operator of Trainman, the online railway ticket booking platform. SEPL achieved a turnover of Rs 4.51 crore in the financial year 2022-23. Let us tell you that Adani Enterprises announced an agreement to buy the entire stake of SEPL last month.
Adani Group is preparing to step into the railway sector by acquiring SEPL. Adani Enterprises will soon sell online train tickets through ‘Trainman’. Adani Group’s investment in Trainman is its second venture in the travel booking and information sector. In October 2021, Adani Enterprises bought minority stakes in Flipkart’s online travel aggregator Cleartrip Pvt Ltd.
What Did The Company Say In The Filing?
“Adani Digital Labs Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, has acquired 29.81 per cent stake for Rs 3.56 crore,” Adani Enterprises said in a filing to the stock market on Saturday. While Adani Enterprises touted SEPL as an ‘online train booking and information platform’ last month, it called it an e-commerce and website development company on Saturday.
Last month, Congress strongly reacted to the announcement of the Adani Group joining the rail ticket business. Party general secretary Jairam Ramesh had said that Adani’s acquisition of the Trainman platform could eventually pave the way for the acquisition of IRCTC, the ticketing arm of the Indian Railways.
IRCTC Had Denied
Refuting this, IRCTC had said that about 14.5 lakh reserved tickets are booked daily in Indian Railways. About 81 per cent of these tickets are booked online and through IRCTC only. There is no competition between IRCTC and its agents like trainmen in this situation. IRCTC’s ticketing partner Trainman has a share of 0.13 per cent of the total reserved tickets.
