Adani Enterprises has acquired a nearly 30 per cent stake in Start Enterprises Pvt Ltd (SEPL), the owner of Trainman, an online platform for train ticket bookings. The acquisition was announced by Adani Enterprises last month, stating their intention to acquire 100 per cent of SEPL.
In a filing with the stock exchange on Saturday, Adani Enterprises disclosed that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Adani Digital Labs Pvt Ltd, has purchased a 29.81 per cent stake in SEPL for Rs 3.56 crore. SEPL reported a turnover of Rs 4.51 crore in the fiscal year 2022-23 (April 2022 to March 2023).
What is Trainman?
Founded in 2011 by Vineet Chirania and Karan Kumar, Trainman is an Indian train travel booking app that allows passengers to check their PNR (Passenger Name Record) status, predicts the likelihood of getting a confirmed seat from a waitlist, and provides real-time updates on seat availability, train status, timetable, coach position, fare calculation, and more.
This investment in Trainman marks the Adani Group’s second foray into the travel booking and information segment. In October 2021, Adani Enterprises acquired a minority stake in Cleartrip Pvt Ltd, an online travel aggregator owned by Flipkart.
While the initial description of SEPL by Adani Enterprises referred to it as an “online train booking and information platform”, the company now describes it as an entity involved in “e-commerce and website development”. This change in description caused some controversy last month when Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh suggested that Adani’s acquisition of Trainman could potentially lead to a takeover of IRCTC, the Indian Railways’ ticketing and service arm.
However, IRCTC issued a statement denying the allegation, explaining that around 14.5 lakh reserved tickets are booked daily in Indian Railways, with approximately 81 per cent being e-tickets processed through IRCTC itself. As a business-to-consumer (B2C) partner of IRCTC, Trainman contributes only 0.13 per cent of the total reserved ticketing. IRCTC emphasised that there is no competition between IRCTC and its agents, including Trainman, as they are integrated with IRCTC’s platform, ultimately benefiting customers by providing a seamless ticketing process.
(With inputs from agencies)