From a jute mill to Delhi's airport: GMR's unlikely route
In 1978 G. M. Rao bought a jute mill in Rajam, Andhra Pradesh. His group went on to dabble in banking, breweries, software and sugar, then shed almost all of it. Today GMR runs Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport, airports in Greece and the Philippines, and cricket teams on three continents.
The turning point was India's economic liberalisation in the early 1990s. Rather than spread further, Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao sold off non-core businesses and bet on infrastructure built through public-private partnerships. The New Delhi conglomerate now spans airports, power plants, highways and planned urban zones, with a net asset base close to 25 billion US dollars, placing it among India's biggest infrastructure developers.
Airports became the showpiece after GMR Airports was set up in 2003. Besides Delhi it operates Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International, Goa's Manohar International and Nagpur's airport, with a new airport for Visakhapatnam on the way. Abroad it runs Mactan-Cebu in the Philippines and New Heraklion in Greece. The French operator Groupe ADP bought 49% of GMR Airports in July 2020. Around Hyderabad's airport the group launched a 1,500-acre airport city in April 2021, billed as India's largest aerotropolis, and in December 2022 it paid 625 crore rupees, a tenth of the cost, toward a metro line to reach it.
Elsewhere the portfolio includes 3200 megawatts of generating capacity from 15 hydro, thermal and renewable projects, 11 of them running, plus more than 2,400 lane-kilometres of roads, among them a 473 lane-kilometre stretch of NH-7 labelled a green highway. A flight academy opened in Hyderabad in 2009 and a charter airline, GMR Aviation, in 2006.
Sport is the most visible sideline. With JSW Group it co-owns the IPL's Delhi Capitals, founded in 2008 as the Delhi Daredevils, plus a Women's Premier League side. It also owns the Dubai Capitals, 2025 champions of the International League T20, the Seattle Orcas in Major League Cricket and the kabaddi team UP Yoddha, and in 2025 bought 49% of The Hundred's Southern Brave.
Source: GMR Group
