Adani Ports to buy Evos, Europe's No. 2 independent liquid storage operator

The mechanics, as the filing and the enclosed presentation lay them out: the €2,558 million enterprise value bridges to the €1,184 million equity cheque after deducting €1,374 million of net debt and debt-like items, including €289 million of shareholder debt. At the ₹106.4-per-euro rate the presentation uses, the equity consideration is roughly ₹12,597 Cr — about 2.9% of APSEZ's ₹4,34,204 Cr market capitalisation. The transaction will be funded via debt; MUFG is the sole underwriter and has provided financing commitments for up to €2,800 million (≈ ₹29,792 Cr). Completion is indicatively 15 months from November 5, 2026, subject to government and regulatory approvals in India and relevant foreign jurisdictions; the release says the regulatory approval processes and the works council consultation start immediately.

Evos B.V. was incorporated in the Netherlands on December 5, 2019. It operates eight port-based terminals across seven ports in five countries — the Netherlands (Amsterdam East, Amsterdam West, Rotterdam, Terneuzen), Belgium (Ghent), Germany (Hamburg), Spain (Algeciras) and Malta — positioned in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) region, Hamburg and the Mediterranean. The platform comprises 452 tanks and 63 vessel and barge berths, with several integrated pipeline connectivities including Schiphol airport and the Central Europe Pipeline System, and handled 37 MMT of throughput in CY25. It stores gasoline, gasoil, marine fuels and jet fuel alongside transition fuels — sustainable aviation fuel, biofuels, methanol, bioethanol. Importantly, Evos does not own the products it stores: the release describes it as a critical link in its customers' supply chains, with a Tier-1 roster of global energy majors, industrial and chemical companies and commodity traders, average 99% commercial occupancy, a substantial part of revenue under take-or-pay contracts and a CPI-linked contract base. It is an investment-grade rated issuer.

The presentation's product split of Evos's 2025 revenue shows a platform that still earns mostly from conventional fuels — gasoline 31%, chemicals 22%, marine fuel and fuel oil 21%, gasoil/diesel 9% — with biofuels at 9%, jet fuel at 4% and sustainable aviation fuel at 3%. The strategic argument is forward-looking: the company positions the ARA region as Europe's leading liquid bulk trading and blending hub and cites a potential India–Europe corridor for green methanol, green ammonia, biofuels and SAF feedstock. On the volume math APSEZ presents, the deal lifts its liquids cargo from 46 MMT to 83 MMT (FY26 APSEZ plus CY25 Evos), and Evos's CY25 revenue and EBITDA are equivalent to 10.8% and 10.2% of APSEZ's FY26 revenue and EBITDA respectively.

This is where the deal's character shows. APSEZ enters at 1.88× net debt to EBITDA on FY26 numbers. Evos arrives carrying ₹14,052 Cr of net debt against ₹2,333 Cr of EBITDA — 6.02× on a standalone basis — and the ₹12,597 Cr acquisition financing takes combined post-acquisition net debt to ₹69,559 Cr, or 2.76× combined EBITDA, which the company expects to ease to around 2.5× by FY27. The offsetting arguments are about cash flow quality: Evos's 56% CY25 EBITDA margin sits above the 44.8% that APSEZ's own International Ports portfolio earned in H1 FY27, the presentation cites EBITDA-to-operating-cash-flow conversion of 83% in CY25 that it expects to continue, and APSEZ reported a cash balance of ₹12,502 Cr as of Q2 FY27 (September 30, 2026). The 99% occupancy and take-or-pay, CPI-linked contract base is, in effect, the company's case for why this leverage is serviceable.

The earnings base APSEZ is paying for has grown steadily: income from €323 million in CY23 to €392 million in CY25, EBITDA from €166 million to €219 million, with the margin widening from 51% to 56%. The CY26 estimate of €408 million income and €225 million EBITDA is what produces the 11.4× forward multiple the presentation quotes alongside 11.7× on CY25 actuals. The filing offers no comparable-transaction benchmarks, so whether 11.7× is a full or a fair price cannot be judged from the disclosure itself — what the company emphasises instead is the contract structure and the margin accretion relative to its existing international portfolio.

Over the sixty sessions charted the stock rose from ₹1,668.2 on August 11 to ₹1,884.6 — up 13.0% — and on November 5 itself touched its 52-week adjusted high of ₹1,944.7 before closing 1.3% below the previous day. One reading note: the acquisition filing reached the exchange at 15:08 IST, twenty-two minutes before the close, so most of the session's trading preceded it; the −1.3% is the formal filing-session move, not necessarily the market's considered verdict on the deal. The stock remains 45.9% above its 52-week low of ₹1,292 (January 23) and closed 3.1% below the high. Since the October 28 results, the sharpest single-day move was +6.3% on October 29, in the first session after the post-results analyst meet outcome was filed after close on October 28; results day itself closed +0.4%.