Sidharath Kapur, man behind GMR’s airports expansion, quits

Sidharath Kapur, executive director and the main brain behind GMR Infra’s expansive airports business, has resigned, said two people aware of the matter.

Kapur is likely to join a global infrastructure firm, one of the persons cited above said, without elaborating and requesting anonymity.

Kapur had joined GMR in 2009 as its president of the airports business. It was already running airports in Delhi and Hyderabad and had bagged its first international airport project in Turkey. It later sold its stake in the Turkey airport.

In the decade under Kapur, GMR bagged projects in Maldives (Ibrahim Nasir International Airport, Male), Philippines (Mactan-Cebu International Airport, Clark International Airport) and Greece (Heraklion Airport, Crete Islands), with Kapur leading the discussions and transactions with partner companies, governments, financiers and industry bodies across the world.

In India, it got Goa, Nagpur, and the latest one in Bhogapuram, Andhra Pradesh.

Kapur’s strategising was needed when GMR bagged the Mactan-Cebu International Airport in the Philippines. Local companies, especially realtors, lobbied hard to waylay its winning bid.

“Sidharath then headed the task force to tackle the situation.... This went on for five months. I never once saw him losing his cool,” said a former associate of Kapur, who didn’t want to be named. The project went through.

“His fund raising capabilities at GMR have been remarkable,” said Kapil Kaul, South Asia CEO at Sydney-based consultant CAPA — Centre for Aviation, adding he was “pivotal” to the company’s successful efforts at cutting debt.

However, GMR is yet to be successful at selling an equity stake in its airports business. It has also, at various points, tried for an IPO of its airport business. It recently announced plans to demerge airports holding company with the aim of eventually listing it. It is in talks with Singapore’s GIC and Japanese diversified conglomerate Mitsubishi Corp to divest stake.