UK’s SRAM & MRAM group to invest $100 mn in SpiceXpress

Days after budget airline SpiceJet's subsidiary ‘SpiceXpress’ was hived off into a separate entity, the United Kingdom-based SRAM & MRAM Group has announced investment of $100 million in SpiceXpress and Logistics Pvt Ltd. The hiving off of the business unit allowed the company to raise funds independently in order to raise funds to reduce its existing liabilities. Both sides have signed an MoU as part of the investment deal.

Headquartered in the UK, SRAM & MRAM group is a leading international conglomerate with offices in Cambodia, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Georgia, India & Bangladesh. The group’s interests are spread business verticals and operations -- agricultural and agro-food products, neural networks, artificial intelligence, hedge fund management, forex management, hospitality services and solutions, information technology, media and publishing, embedded systems and infrastructure.

Ajay Singh, chairman and managing director, SpiceJet, said SpiceXpress is delighted to enter into a MoU with SRAM & MRAM group. "We had recently hived off SpiceXpress into a separate company as we were extremely confident and bullish about the potential of our tech-enabled logistics business and this MoU reaffirms our belief. This investment should help SpiceXpress to further grow and expand and provide a more streamlined and efficient service to its customers.”

Sailesh Lachu Hiranandani, chairman, SRAM & MRAM Group, said the company sees excellent growth opportunities in the logistics and cargo space in India. "SpiceXpress will contribute to India’s growth story. In a short time since its inception, the company has shown exceptional growth in the nascent air cargo market and we see tremendous potential for the Company in India’s fast-growing cargo and logistics market.”

The MoU with SRAM & MRAM group follows a restructuring agreement with aircraft lessor Carlyle Aviation Partner effective April 1, 2023, wherein the latter picked up a stake in SpiceXpress at an anticipated future valuation of $1.5 billion or ₹12,422 crore.

In February, the SpiceJet board had approved the conversion of the airline’s outstanding lease liabilities to aircraft lessor Carlyle Aviation Partners into equity. SpiceJet said it will convert shares worth around $29.5 million at a price of ₹48 per equity share. The no-frill carrier’s board also proposed raising fresh capital of up to ₹2,500 crore by issuing securities to qualified institutional buyers.

SpiceJet's net profit surged 160% year-on-year to ₹110 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2022, while revenue rose 2.5% to ₹2,316.8 crore in the third quarter vs ₹2,262.6 crore in the year-ago period.

The shares of SpiceJet rose as much as 2.10% in intraday trade to ₹30.44 apiece today on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). In contrast, the BSE Sensex was trading 0.72% up at 62,481.85, while the Nifty 50 was trading 0.66% up at the 18,434 level.